Browsing by Author "Asmus, Daniel"

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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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    BASS. XXV. DR2 Broad-line-based Black Hole Mass Estimates and Biases from Obscuration
    (2022) Mejía-Restrepo, Julian E.; Trakhtenbrot, Benny; Koss, Michael J.; Oh, Kyuseok; den Brok, Jakob; Stern, Daniel; Powell, Meredith C.; Ricci, Federica; Caglar, Turgay; Ricci, Claudio; Bauer, Franz Erik; Treister , Ezequiel; Harrison, Fiona A.; Urry, C. M.; Ananna, Tonima Tasnim; Asmus, Daniel; Assef, Roberto J.; Bär, Rudolf E.; Bessiere, Patricia S.; Burtscher, Leonard; Ichikawa, Kohei; Kakkad, Darshan; Kamraj, Nikita; Mushotzky, Richard; Privon, George C.; Rojas, Alejandra F.; Sani, Eleonora; Schawinski, Kevin; Veilleux, Sylvain
    We present measurements of broad emission lines and virial estimates of supermassive black hole masses (M _{BH} ) for a large sample of ultrahard X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) as part of the second data release of the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS/DR2). Our catalog includes M _{BH} estimates for a total of 689 AGNs, determined from the Hα, Hβ, Mg II λ2798, and/or C_{IV} λ1549 broad emission lines. The core sample includes a total of 512 AGNs drawn from the 70 month Swift/BAT all-sky catalog. We also provide measurements for 177 additional AGNs that are drawn from deeper Swift/BAT survey data. We study the links between M _{BH} estimates and line-of-sight obscuration measured from X-ray spectral analysis. We find that broad Hα emission lines in obscured AGNs (Log(N_{H} / cm^{-2} > 22.0) are on average a factor of 8.0_{-2.4}^{+4.1} weaker relative to ultrahard X-ray emission and about 35_{-12}^{,+7} % narrower than those in unobscured sources (i.e.(Log(N_{H} / cm^{-2} > 21.5). This indicates that the innermost part of the broad-line region is preferentially absorbed. Consequently, current single-epoch M _{BH} prescriptions result in severely underestimated (>1 dex) masses for Type 1.9 sources (AGNs with broad Hα but no broad Hβ) and/or sources with Log(N_{H} / cm^{-2} >= 22.0 . We provide simple multiplicative corrections for the observed luminosity and width of the broad Hα component (LbHα and FWHMbHα) in such sources to account for this effect and to (partially) remedy M _{BH} estimates for Type 1.9 objects. As a key ingredient of BASS/DR2, our work provides the community with the data needed to further study powerful AGNs in the low-redshift universe.