CaltechAUTHORS
Published July 10, 2023 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

Resolving Galactic-scale Obscuration of X-Ray AGNs at z ≳ 1 with COSMOS-Web

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon University of Tokyo
  • 2. ROR icon European Southern Observatory
  • 3. ROR icon Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics
  • 4. ROR icon Max Planck Institute for Astronomy
  • 5. ROR icon École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
  • 6. ROR icon Rochester Institute of Technology
  • 7. ROR icon Goddard Space Flight Center
  • 8. ROR icon Peking University
  • 9. ROR icon Tel Aviv University
  • 10. ROR icon Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg
  • 11. ROR icon Astronomical Observatory of Rome
  • 12. ROR icon The University of Texas at Austin
  • 13. ROR icon Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
  • 14. ROR icon Infrared Processing and Analysis Center
  • 15. ROR icon University of Copenhagen
  • 16. ROR icon Technical University of Denmark
  • 17. ROR icon University of Helsinki
  • 18. ROR icon Space Telescope Science Institute
  • 19. ROR icon University of Groningen
  • 20. ROR icon University of Bologna
  • 21. ROR icon Clemson University
  • 22. ROR icon University of California, Los Angeles
  • 23. ROR icon University of Potsdam
  • 24. ROR icon Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam

Abstract

A large fraction of the accreting supermassive black hole population is shrouded by copious amounts of gas and dust, particularly in the distant (z ≳ 1) universe. While much of the obscuration is attributed to a parsec-scale torus, there is a known contribution from the larger-scale host galaxy. Using JWST/NIRCam imaging from the COSMOS-Web survey, we probe the galaxy-wide dust distribution in X-ray selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) up to z ∼ 2. Here, we focus on a sample of three AGNs with their host galaxies exhibiting prominent dust lanes, potentially due to their edge-on alignment. These represent 27% (3 out of 11 with early NIRCam data) of the heavily obscured (N_H > 10²³ cm⁻²) AGN population. With limited signs of a central AGN in the optical and near-infrared, the NIRCam images are used to produce reddening maps E(B − V) of the host galaxies. We compare the mean central value of E(B − V) to the X-ray obscuring column density along the line of sight to the AGN (N_H ∼ 10^(23−23.5) cm⁻²). We find that the extinction due to the host galaxy is present (0.6 ≲ E(B − V) ≲ 0.9; 1.9 ≲ A_V ≲ 2.8) and significantly contributes to the X-ray obscuration at a level of N_H ∼ 10^(22.5) cm⁻² assuming an SMC gas-to-dust ratio that amounts to ≲30% of the total obscuring column density. These early results, including three additional cases from CEERS, demonstrate the ability to resolve such dust structures with JWST and separate the different circumnuclear and galaxy-scale obscuring structures.

Additional Information

© 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. We thank the anonymous referee for comments that improved the paper. We also are appreciative of useful discussions with Andy Goulding and Rosie Wise. J.S. is supported by JSPS KAKENHI (JP22H01262) and the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI), MEXT, Japan. M.O. is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12150410307). X.D. is supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant No. JP22K14071. The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF) under grant No. 140. B.T. acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement number 950533) and from the Israel Science Foundation (grant number 1849/19). M.F. acknowledges support from NSF grant AST-2009577 and NASA JWST GO Program 1727. E.V. acknowledges support from Carl Zeiss Stiftung with the project code KODAR.

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
122565
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20230727-911770600.12

Funding

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
JP22H01262
National Natural Science Foundation of China
12150410307
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)
JP22K14071
Danish National Research Foundation
140
European Research Council (ERC)
950533
Israel Science Foundation
1849/19
NSF
AST-2009577
NASA
JWST-GO-1727
Carl Zeiss Stiftung

Dates

Created
2023-08-14
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2023-08-15
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

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Caltech groups
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)