The clustering amplitude of X-ray-selected AGN atz∼ 0.8: evidence for a negative dependence on accretion luminosity

2016/02/04 by G. Mountrichas, A. Georgakakis, Marie-Luise Menzel +7 · 26 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Active galactic nucleus #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Dark matter halo #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Halo #Luminosity #Physics #QSOS #Redshift #Star formation #Stellar mass #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.GA

paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stw281

published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 457(4), 4195-4204 (Oxford University Press) · MNRAS accepted. 10 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables

arxiv created 2016/02/04 · openalex publication_date 2016/02/12 · arxiv updated 2016/03/16 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

The northern tile of the wide-area and shallow XMM-XXL X-ray survey field is used to estimate the average dark matter halo mass of relatively luminous X-ray-selected active galactic nucleus (AGN) [|\rm log \it L_X (\rm 2\rm -10 keV)= 43.6^+0.4_-0.4 erg s^-1|] in the redshift interval z = 0.5–1.2. Spectroscopic follow-up observations of X-ray sources in the XMM-XXL field by the Sloan telescope are combined with the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey spectroscopic galaxy survey to determine the cross-correlation signal between X-ray-selected AGN (total of 318) and galaxies (about 20 000). We model the large scales (2–25 Mpc) of the correlation function to infer a mean dark matter halo mass of |log M / (M_\odot h^-1) = 12.50 ^+0.22 _-0.30| for the X-ray-selected AGN sample. This measurement is about 0.5 dex lower compared to estimates in the literature of the mean dark matter halo masses of moderate-luminosity X-ray AGN [LX(2-10 keV) ≈ 1042-1043 erg s− 1] at similar redshifts. Our analysis also links the mean clustering properties of moderate-luminosity AGN with those of powerful ultraviolet/optically selected QSOs, which are typically found in haloes with masses few times 1012 M⊙. There is therefore evidence for a negative luminosity dependence of the AGN clustering. This is consistent with suggestions that AGN have a broad dark matter halo mass distribution with a high mass tail that becomes subdominant at high accretion luminosities. We further show that our results are in qualitative agreement with semi-analytic models of galaxy and AGN evolution, which attribute the wide range of dark matter halo masses among the AGN population to different triggering mechanisms and/or black hole fuelling modes.

Citations

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