AGN-host galaxy connection: multiwavelength study

Abstract

The connection between active galactic nuclei (AGN) and their hosts showed to be important for understanding the formation and evolution of active galaxies. Using X–ray and deep optical data, we study how morphology and colours are related to X–ray properties at redshifts z≤2.0 for a sample of > 300 X–ray detected AGN in the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Survey (SXDS; Furusawa et al. 2008) and Groth-Westphal Strip (GWS; Pović et al. 2009) fields. We performed our morphological classification using the galSVM code (Huertas-Company et al. 2008), which is a new method that is particularly suited when dealing with high-redshift sources. To separate objects between X–ray unobscured and obscured, we used X–ray hardness ratio HR(0.5-2 keV/2-4.5 keV). Colour-magnitude diagrams were studied in relationship to redshift, morphology, X–ray obscuration, and X–ray-to-optical flux ratio. Around 50% of X–ray detected AGN at z≤2.0 analysed in this work reside in spheroidal and bulge-dominated galaxies, while at least 18% have disk-dominated hosts. This suggests that different mechanisms may be responsible for triggering the nuclear activity. When analysing populations of X–ray detected AGN in both colour-magnitude (CMD) and colour-stellar mass diagrams (Figure 1), the highest number of sources is found to reside in the green valley at redshifts ≈ 0.5–1.5. For the first time we studied CMD of these AGN in relation to morphology and X–ray obscuration, finding that they can reside in both early- and late-type hosts, where both morphological types cover similar ranges of X–ray obscuration (Figure 1). Our findings appear to confirm some previous suggestions that X–ray selected AGN residing in the green valley represent a transitional population (e.g. Nandra et al. 2007, Silverman et al. 2008, Treister et al. 2009), quenching star formation by means of different AGN feedback mechanisms and evolving to red-sequence galaxies. More details on analysis and results presented here can be found in Pović et al. 2012.