Browsing by Author "Rosario, David J."

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    BASS. XXIII. A New Mid-infrared Diagnostic for Absorption in Active Galactic Nuclei
    (2022) Pfeifle, Ryan W.; Ricci, Claudio; Boorman, Peter G.; Stalevski, Marko; Asmus, Daniel; Trakhtenbrot, Benny; Koss, Michael J.; Stern, Daniel; Ricci, Federica; Satyapal, Shobita; Ichikawa, Kohei; Rosario, David J.; Caglar, Turgay; Treister, Ezequiel; Powell, Meredith; Oh, Kyuseok; Urry, C. Megan; Harrison, Fiona
    In this study, we use the Swift/BAT AGN sample, which has received extensive multiwavelength follow-up analysis as a result of the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey, to develop a diagnostic for nuclear obscuration by examining the relationship between the line-of-sight column densities (N-H), the 2-10 keV to 12 mu m luminosity ratio, and WISE mid-infrared colors. We demonstrate that heavily obscured AGNs tend to exhibit both preferentially "redder" mid-infrared colors and lower values of L-X,L-Obs./L-12 mu m than less obscured AGNs, and we derive expressions relating N-H to the L-X,L-Obs./L-12 mu m and L-22 mu m/L-4.6 mu m luminosity ratios, as well as develop diagnostic criteria using these ratios. Our diagnostic regions yield samples that are greater than or similar to 80% complete and greater than or similar to 60% pure for AGNs with log(N-H/cm(-2)) >= 24, as well as greater than or similar to 85% pure for AGNs with log(N-H/cm(-2)) greater than or similar to 23.5. We find that these diagnostics cannot be used to differentiate between optically star-forming galaxies and active galaxies. Further, mid-IR contributions from host galaxies that dominate the observed 12 mu m emission can lead to larger apparent X-ray deficits and redder mid-IR colors than the AGNs would intrinsically exhibit, though this effect helps to better separate less and more obscured AGNs. Finally, we test our diagnostics on two catalogs of AGNs and infrared galaxies, including the XMM-Newton XXL-N field, and we identify several known Compton-thick AGNs, as well as a handful of candidate heavily obscured AGNs based upon our proposed obscuration diagnostics.
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    The NuSTAR Serendipitous Survey: The 80 Month Catalog and Source Properties of the High-energy Emitting Active Galactic Nucleus and Quasar Population
    (2024) Greenwell, Claire L.; Klindt, Lizelke; Lansbury, George B.; Rosario, David J.; Alexander, David M.; Aird, James; Stern, Daniel; Forster, Karl; Koss, Michael J.; Bauer, Franz E.; Ricci, Claudio; Tomsick, John; Brandt, William N.; Connor, Thomas; Boorman, Peter G.; Annuar, Adlyka; Ballantyne, David R.; Chen, Chien-Ting; Civano, Francesca; Comastri, Andrea; Fawcett, Victoria A.; Fornasini, Francesca M.; Gandhi, Poshak; Harrison, Fiona; Heida, Marianne; Hickox, Ryan; Kammoun, Elias S.; Lanz, Lauranne; Marchesi, Stefano; Noirot, Gael; Romero-Colmenero, Encarni; Treister, Ezequiel; Urry, C. Megan; Vaisanen, Petri; van Soelen, Brian
    We present a catalog of hard X-ray serendipitous sources detected in the first 80 months of observations by the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). The NuSTAR serendipitous survey 80 month (NSS80) catalog has an unprecedented similar to 62 Ms of effective exposure time over 894 unique fields (a factor of 3 increase over the 40 month catalog, NSS40), with an areal coverage of similar to 36 deg(2), larger than all NuSTAR extragalactic surveys. NSS80 provides 1274 hard X-ray sources in the 3-24 keV band (822 new detections compared to the previous NSS40). Approximately 76% of the NuSTAR sources have lower-energy (<10 keV) X-ray counterparts from Chandra, XMM-Newton, and Swift-XRT. We have undertaken an extensive campaign of ground-based spectroscopic follow-up to obtain new source redshifts and classifications for 427 sources. Combining these with existing archival spectroscopy provides redshifts for 550 NSS80 sources, of which 547 are classified. The sample is primarily composed of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), detected over a large range in redshift (z = 0.012-3.43), but also includes 58 spectroscopically confirmed Galactic sources. In addition, five AGN-galaxy pairs, one dual AGN system, one BL Lac candidate, and a hotspot of 4C 74.26 (radio quasar) have been identified. The median rest-frame 10-40 keV luminosity and redshift of NSS80 are < L10-40 keV > = 1.2 x 10(44) erg s(-1) and < z > = 0.56. We investigate the optical properties and construct composite optical spectra to search for subtle signatures not present in the individual spectra, finding an excess of redder BL AGNs compared to optical quasar surveys, predominantly due to the presence of the host galaxy and, at least in part, due to dust obscuration.