Multiwavelength Properties of Infrared-Faint Radio Sources Based on Spectral Energy Distribution Analysis

Abstract

Infrared-faint radio sources (IFRSs) are believed to be a rare class of radio-loud active galactic nuclei (RL AGN) characterized by their high radio-to-infrared flux density ratios of up to several thousands. Previous studies have shown that a fraction of IFRSs are likely to be hosted in dust-obscured galaxies (DOGs). In this paper, our aim was to probe the dust properties, star formation rate (SFR), and AGN activity of IFRSs by modeling the UV-to-infrared spectral energy distribution (SED) of 20 IFRSs with spectroscopic redshifts ranging from 1.2 to 3.7. We compare the Bayesian evidence of a three-component model (stellar, AGN and cold dust) with that of a two-component model (stellar and cold dust) for six IFRSs in our sample with far-infrared (FIR) photometry and find that the three-component model has significantly higher Bayesian evidence, suggesting that IFRSs are most likely to be AGN. The median SED of our IFRS sample shows similarities to AGN-starburst composite in the IR regime. The derived IR luminosities of IFRSs indicate that they are low-luminosity counterparts of high-redshift radio galaxies. We disentangle the contributions of AGN-heated and star-formation-heated dust to the IR luminosity of IFRSs and find that our sample is likely AGN-dominated. However, despite the evidence for significant impact of AGN on the host galaxy, the AGN luminosity of our sample does not show correlation with the SFR of the sources.

27 pages, 11 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ

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