Forward modeling of the full galaxy SED is a powerful technique, providing self-consistent constraints on stellar ages, dust properties, and metallicities. However, the accuracy of these results is contingent on the accuracy of the model. One significant source of uncertainty is the contribution of obscured AGN, as they are relatively common and can produce substantial mid-IR (MIR) emission. Here we include emission from dusty AGN torii in the Prospector SED-fitting framework, and fit the UV-IR broadband photometry of 129 nearby galaxies. We find that 10% of the fitted galaxies host an AGN contributing $>$10% of the observed galaxy MIR luminosity. We demonstrate the necessity of this AGN component in the following ways. First, we compare observed spectral features to spectral features predicted from our model fit to the photometry. We find that the AGN component greatly improves predictions for observed H$α$ and H$β$ luminosities, as well as mid-infrared Akari and Spitzer/IRS spectra. Second, we show that inclusion of the AGN component changes stellar ages and SFRs by up to a factor of 10, and dust attenuations by up to a factor of 2.5. Finally, we show that the strength of our model AGN component correlates with independent AGN indicators, suggesting that these galaxies truly host AGN. Notably, only 46% of the SED-detected AGN would be detected with a simple MIR color selection. Based on these results, we conclude that SED models which fit MIR data without AGN components are vulnerable to substantial bias in their derived parameters.
Modelling and interpreting the SEDs of galaxies has become one of the key tools at the disposal of extragalactic astronomers. Ideally, we could hope that, through a detailed study of its SED, we can infer the correct physical properties and the evolutionary history of a galaxy. In the past decade, panchromatic SED fitting, i.e. modelling the SED over the entire UV-submm wavelength regime, has seen an enormous advance. Several advanced new codes have been developed, nearly all based on Bayesian inference modelling. In this review, we briefly touch upon the different ingredients necessary for pa…
Sparks II: Panchromatic SED modeling and galaxy physical properties across the starburst to post-starburst sequence
Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology, Stanford University（斯坦福大学卡弗里粒子天体物理与宇宙学研究所）；Center for Decoding the Universe, Stanford University（斯坦福大学解码宇宙中心）；Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University（普林斯顿大学天体物理科学系）；Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California Santa Cruz（加州大学圣克鲁兹分校天文与天体物理系）；Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU)（宇宙物理与数学卡弗里研究所）；Division of Science, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan（日本国立天文台科学部）；Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik（马克斯·普朗克地外物理学研究所）
Fitting the multi-wavelength spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies is a widely used technique to extract information about the physical properties of galaxies. However, a major difficulty lies in the numerous uncertainties regarding almost all ingredients of the SED modeling of galaxies. The Bayesian methods provide a consistent conceptual basis for dealing with the problem of inference with many uncertainties. While the Bayesian parameter estimation method have become quite popular in the field of SED fitting of galaxies, the Bayesian model comparison method, which is based on the …
We test the efficacy of the energy-balance spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting code Magphys for recovering the spatially-resolved properties of a simulated isolated disc galaxy, for which it was not designed. We perform 226,950 Magphys SED fits to regions between 0.2kpc and 25kpc in size across the galaxy's disc, viewed from three different sight-lines, to probe how well Magphys can recover key galaxy properties based on 21 bands of UV--far-infrared model photometry. Magphys yields statistically acceptable fits to $> 99$ per cent of the pixels within the $r$-band effective radius and be…
I will review the tips learned from panchromatic modeling of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), based on our recent work to study the relationship between AGN and star formation (SF). Several AGN SED models are compared, and signifficant AGN contribution is found in the IR luminosities and corresponding star formation rate (SFR). I will review the AGN-SF relation and how different parameters and sample selections affect the observed correlation. I will then report on the constant ratio discovered between the SFR and the black hole mass accretion rate (BHAR), and their implications on the gas suppl…
We study spatially resolved properties (on spatial scales of $\sim 1-2$ kpc out to at least $3$ effective radii) of the stars, dust, and gas in ten nearby spiral galaxies. The properties of the stellar population and dust are derived by fitting the spatially resolved spectral energy distribution (SED) with more than 20 photometric bands ranging from far-ultraviolet to far-infrared. Our newly developed software piXedfit performs point spread function matching of images, pixel binning, and models the stellar light, dust attenuation, dust emission, and emission from a dusty torus heated by an act…
Galaxy observations are influenced by many physical parameters: stellar masses, star formation rates (SFRs), star formation histories (SFHs), metallicities, dust, black hole activity, and more. As a result, inferring accurate physical parameters requires high-dimensional models which capture or marginalize over this complexity. Here we re-assess inferences of galaxy stellar masses and SFRs using the 14-parameter physical model Prospector-$α$ built in the Prospector Bayesian inference framework. We fit the photometry of 58,461 galaxies from the 3D-HST catalogs at $0.5 < z < 2.5$. The resulting …
We present predictions of Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs), from the UV to the FIR, of simulated galaxies at $z=0$. These were obtained by post-processing the results of an N-body+hydro simulation of a small cosmological volume, that uses the Multi-Phase Particle Integrator (MUPPI) for star formation and stellar feedback, with the GRASIL-3D radiative transfer code, that includes reprocessing of UV light by dust. Physical properties of galaxies resemble observed ones, though with some tension at small and large stellar masses. Comparing predicted SEDs of simulated galaxies with different sa…
Among all the astronomical sources investigated through the prism of polarimetry, active galactic nuclei (AGN) have proven to be the richest in terms of complex yet fundamental signatures that helped to understand their true nature. Indeed, AGN exhibit a wide range of wavelength-dependent polarimetric features that are intrinsically related to their multi-scale emission mechanisms. Each waveband is characterized by a different set of polarimetric signatures that can be related to various physical mechanisms that, from the radio band to the soft-$γ$ rays, probe increasingly smaller AGN regions.…
We have developed a pipeline called \mentari to generate the far-ultraviolet to far-infrared spectral energy distribution (SED) of galaxies from the \dustysage semi-analytic galaxy formation model (SAM). \dustysage incorporates dust-related processes directly on top of the basic ingredients of galaxy formation like gas infall, cooling, star formation, feedback, and mergers. We derive a physically motivated attenuation model from the computed dust properties in \dustysage, so each galaxy has a self-consistent set of attenuation parameters based on the complicated dust physics that occurred acro…
We present X-ray (Chandra), radio (EVLA and EVN), and archival optical data of the triple-merging system in NGC3341. Our panchromatic analysis confirms the presence of a Seyfert 2 AGN in NGC3341B, one of the secondary dwarf companions. On the other hand, the nucleus of the primary galaxy, consistent with a star-forming region of a few solar masses per year, and NGC3341C are very unlikely to host an AGN. We therefore suggest that NGC3341 is an exceptional example of an AGN triggered in the satellite galaxy of a minor-merging system. The existence of such a system can have important implications…
UV-FIR SED modeling is an effective way to disentangle emission between star formation (SF) and active galactic nuclei (AGN) in galaxies; however, this approach becomes uncertain for composite AGN/SF galaxies that comprise 50-70% of IR-samples. Cosmic X-ray background (XRB) models require a large fraction of obscured AGN to reproduce the observed XRB peak, motivating reliable SED analyses in objects where the AGN may be ``buried" in the galaxy and in the mid-IR to far-IR SED. In this paper, we study a 24$μ$m-selected ($S_{24}$ > 100$μ$Jy) sample of 95 galaxies with $0 \% < f_{MIR,AGN} < 100 \%…
To understand the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) phenomenon and their impact on the evolution of galaxies, a complete AGN census is required; however, finding heavily obscured AGNs is observationally challenging. Here we use the deep and extensive multi-wavelength data in the COSMOS field to select a complete sample of 578 infrared (IR) quasars ($L_{\rm AGN,IR}>10^{45}\rm \: erg\: s^{-1}$) at $z<3$, with minimal obscuration bias, using detailed UV-to-far IR spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting. We complement our SED constraints with X-ray and radio observations to further investigate the p…
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are typically identified through radio, mid-infrared, or X-ray emission or through the presence of broad and/or narrow emission lines. AGN can also leave an imprint on a galaxy's spectral energy distribution (SED) through the re-processing of photons by the dusty torus. Using the SED fitting code ProSpect with an incorporated AGN component, we fit the far ultraviolet to far-infrared SEDs of $\sim$494,00 galaxies in the D10-COSMOS field and $\sim$230,000 galaxies from the GAMA survey. By combining an AGN component with a flexible star formation and metallicity imple…
Far-infrared (far-IR)/sub-mm emission linked to AGN-heated dust has been a topic of contention for many years. Results have been diverse and various views have been presented. The empirical AGN SED derived by Symeonidis et al. (2016, hereafter S16) has more far-IR/sub-mm emission than other SEDs in the literature, and thus it is contested by other works which argue that its luminosity in that part of the spectrum is overestimated. Here, I investigate this topic and the concerns raised over the S16 AGN SED. I also examine the differences between the S16 AGN SED and other commonly-used empirical…
We consider the morphology, stellar populations, structure and AGN activity of 10 post-starburst (K+A) galaxies with HST observations, full spectral coverage in the optical, spectral energy distributions from 0.2 to 160 $μ$m, X-ray and radio data. Our results show that the PSG phenomenon is related to mergers and interactions, and that star formation was likely triggered during close passes prior to final coalescence. We performed a detailed qualitative analysis of the observed light distribution, including low-surface brightness tidal features and color profiles, in high-resolution multi-band…
Obscured AGN at z < 1.5: X-ray to Far-Infrared SEDs and Host Galaxy Morphologies in the GOODS Fields
University of Massachusetts, Amherst（马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校）；University of Wisconsin - Madison（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校）；Eureka Scientific（尤里卡科学公司）；Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawai‘i（夏威夷大学天体物理研究所）；Wuhan University（武汉大学）；Northwestern University（西北大学）；Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics（耶鲁天文学与天体物理学中心）；Physics Department and Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics（耶鲁大学物理系及天文学与天体物理学中心）；Yale University（耶鲁大学）；DiRAC Institute and the Department of Astronomy, University of Washington（华盛顿大学DiRAC研究所及天文学系）
We performed near-diffraction-limited (~0.4 FWHM) N-band imaging of one of the nearest Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) in M51 with 8.2m Subaru telescope to study the nuclear structure and spectral energy distribution (SED) at 8-13 um. We found that the nucleus is composed of an unresolved core (at ~13 pc resolution, or intrinsic size corrected for the instrumental effect of <6 pc) and an extended halo (at a few tens pc scale), and each of their SEDs is almost flat. We examined the SED by comparing with the archival Spitzer IRS spectrum processed to mimic our chopping observation of the nucleus, …
We present new estimates of AGN accretion and star-formation luminosity in galaxies obtained for the local 12-$μ$m sample of Seyfert galaxies (12MGS), by performing a detailed broad-band spectral energy distribution (SED) decomposition including the emission of stars, dust heated by star formation and a possible AGN dusty torus. Thanks to the availability of data from the X-rays to the sub-millimetre, we constrain and test the contribution of the stellar, AGN and star-formation components to the SEDs. The availability of Spitzer-IRS low resolution mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectra is crucial to co…
The detection of X-ray emission constitutes a reliable and efficient tool for the selection of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs), although it may be biased against the most heavily absorbed AGNs. Simple mid-IR broad-band selection criteria identify a large number of luminous and absorbed AGNs, yet again host contamination could lead to non-uniform and incomplete samples. Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) decomposition is able to decouple the emission from the AGN versus that from star-forming regions, revealing weaker AGN components. We aim to identify the obscured AGN population in the VIPERS su…
Understanding how galaxies form in the early universe and their subsequent evolution through cosmic time is a major goal of modern astrophysics. Panchromatic look-back sky surveys significantly advanced the field in the past decades, and we are now entering an even more fruitful period - a 'golden age' of radio astronomy - with upgraded, and new facilities delivering an order of magnitude increase in sensitivity. An overview of recent developments in radio continuum sky surveys, focusing on the physical properties and cosmic evolution of radio AGN since z~5 is presented here.
We present the star formation rate (SFR) measurements based on the spectral energy distribution (SED) analysis with new sub-mm fluxes combined with archival multi-wavelength data for a sample of 52 AGN host galaxies at z $<0.2$. We carried out sub-mm observations using the SCUBA-2 camera at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, and obtained flux or an upper limit at 450 and 850 $μ$m for each target. By experimenting the effect of the AGN dust component in the SED fit, we find that dust luminosity can be overestimated if AGN contribution is ignored. While the SFR based on 4000Å break shows a signi…
To elucidate the intrinsic broadband infrared (IR) emission properties of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), we analyze the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of 87 z<0.5 Palomar-Green (PG) quasars. While the Elvis AGN template with a moderate far-IR correction can reasonably match the SEDs of the AGN components in ~60% of the sample (and is superior to alternatives such as that by Assef), it fails on two quasar populations: 1) hot-dust-deficient (HDD) quasars that show very weak emission thoroughly from the near-IR to the far-IR, and 2) warm-dust-deficient (WDD) quasars that have similar hot du…
Continuum SED models of gamma-ray burst (GRB) and obscured GRB host galaxies at moderately high redshifts are presented and compared with those of superluminous supernovae (SLSN), starburst (SB) and active galactic nuclei (AGN). We consider that continuum radiation (bremsstrahlung) is emitted from the same clouds which emit the line spectrum in each object. Therefore, we have selected from the samples of the GRB host continuum observations those that were previously modelled on the basis of the line spectra, because modelling the continuum SED is less constraining. The bremsstrahlung is genera…
Polar dust has been found to play an important role in the mid-infrared emission of nearby Seyfert nuclei. If and how often polar dust exists among the quasar population is unknown due to the lack of spatially-resolved observations. In this Letter, we report correlations between the prominence of AGN forbidden line emission (commonly associated with the narrow line region) and the dust mid-IR energy output among the archetypal Palomar-Green quasar sample and other bright type-1 AGNs drawn from the SDSS, Spitzer and WISE archives. The AGN mid-IR color differences traced by WISE W2 ($\sim4.6 μm$…
High redshift sub-millimetre galaxies (SMGs) are usually assumed to be powered by star-formation. However, it has been clear for some time that $>$20% of such sources brighter than $\approx3$mJy host quasars. Here we analyse a complete sample of 12 sub-mm LABOCA/ALMA 870 $μ$m sources in the centre of the William Herschel Deep Field (WHDF) with multi-wavelength data available from the X-ray to the radio bands. Previously, two sources were identified as X-ray absorbed quasars at $z=1.32$ and $z=2.12$. By comparing their spectral energy distributions (SEDs) with unabsorbed quasars in the same fie…
We investigate infrared colours and spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of 338 X-ray selected AGN from Swift-BAT 105-month survey catalogue that have AKARI detection, in order to find a new selection criteria for Compton-thick AGN. By combining data from Galaxy Evolution Explore (GALEX), Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 14 (DR14), Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), AKARI and Herschel for the first time we perform ultraviolet (UV) to far-infrared (FIR) SED fitting 158 Swift BAT AGN by CIGALE and constrain the AGN model parameters of obscu…
We perform spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting to 711 luminous X-ray AGN at 0.7 < z < 4.5 using 10-bands of optical and infra-red photometric data for objects within XMM-SERVS. This fitting provided 510 reliable (reduced $χ^2 < 3$) inferences on AGN and host galaxy properties. The AGN optical (3000Å) luminosity inferred from SED-fitting is found to correlate with the measured X-ray (2-10 keV) luminosity, in good agreement with previous work. Using X-ray hardness as a proxy for AGN obscuration, we also study the differences in the host galaxy properties of obscured and unobscured AGN. Bo…
We present and analyse quasi-simultaneous multi-epoch spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of seven reverberation-mapped AGNs for which accurate black hole mass measurements and suitable archival data are available from the 'AGN Watch' monitoring programs. We explore the potential of optical-UV and X-ray data, obtained within 2 days, to provide more accurate SED-based measurements of individual AGN and quantify the impact of source variability on key measurements typically used to characterise the black hole accretion process plus on bolometric correction factors at 5100 Å, 1350 Å and for the …
A New Hope for AGN SED Fitting: X-Ray Spectral Analysis of 12MGS AGN with the C2PO-Torus Model
University of Cape Town（开普敦大学）；Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy, University of Cape Town（开普敦大学数据密集型天文学跨大学研究所）；INAF–Istituto di Radioastronomia（意大利国家天体物理研究所射电天文研究所）；INAF–Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio (OAS)（意大利国家天体物理研究所天文与空间科学观测站）；Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia (DIFA) Augusto Righi, Università di Bologna（博洛尼亚大学物理与天文学系）
We present an intrinsic AGN SED extending from the optical to the submm, derived with a sample of unobscured, optically luminous (vLv(5100)>10^43.5 erg/s) QSOs at z<0.18 from the Palomar Green survey. The intrinsic AGN SED was computed by removing the contribution from stars using the 11.3um polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) feature in the QSOs' mid-IR spectra; the 1sigma uncertainty on the SED ranges between 12 and 45 per cent as a function of wavelength and is a combination of PAH flux measurement errors and the uncertainties related to the conversion between PAH luminosity and star-form…
The combination of optical and mid-infrared (MIR) photometry has been extensively used to select red active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Our aim is to explore the obscuration properties of these red AGNs with both X-ray spectroscopy and spectral energy distributions (SEDs). In this study, we re-visit the relation between optical/MIR extinction and X-ray absorption. We use IR selection criteria, specifically the $W1$ and $W2$ WISE bands, to identify 4798 AGNs in the $\it{XMM-XXL}$ area ($\sim 25$deg$^2$). Application of optical/MIR colours ($r- W2 > 6$) reveals 561 red AGNs (14$\%$). Of these, 47 ha…
We investigate the intrinsic spectral energy distribution (SED) of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at infrared (IR) bands with 42 $z < 0.5$ optically luminous Palomar Green survey quasars through SED decomposition. We decompose the SEDs of the 42 quasars by combining an AGN IR template library Siebenmorgen2015 that covers a wide range of the AGN parameter space with three commonly used galaxy template libraries. We determine the median AGN SED from the best-fitting results. The far-IR (FIR) contribution of our median AGN SED is significantly smaller than that of Symeonidis et al. 2016, but rough…
The validity of the unified active galactic nuclei (AGN) model has been challenged in the last decade, especially when different types of AGNs are considered to only differ in the viewing angle to the torus. We aim to assess the importance of the viewing angle in classifying different types of Seyfert galaxies in spectral energy distribution (SED) modelling. We retrieve photometric data from publicly available astronomical databases: CDS and NED, to model SEDs with X-CIGALE in a sample of 13 173 Seyfert galaxies located at redshift range from $z=0$ to $z=3.5$, with a median redshift of $z\appr…
We define a quasar-galaxy mixing diagram using the slopes of their spectral energy distributions (SEDs) from 1μm to 3000Å and from 1μm to 3μm in the rest frame. The mixing diagram can easily distinguish among quasar-dominated, galaxy-dominated and reddening-dominated SED shapes. By studying the position of the 413 XMM selected Type 1 AGN in the wide-field "Cosmic Evolution Survey" (COSMOS) in the mixing diagram, we find that a combination of the Elvis et al. (1994, hereafter E94) quasar SED with various contributions from galaxy emission and some dust reddening is remarkably effective in descr…
Towards a consistent framework of determining active galactic nucleus contribution fraction and host galaxy properties
Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen（格罗宁根大学卡普坦天文研究所）；SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research（荷兰空间研究研究所）；National Centre for Nuclear Research（国家核研究中心）；Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, CNES, LAM（艾克斯-马赛大学）；INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte（意大利国家天体物理研究所卡波迪蒙特天文台）；European Space Agency/ESTEC（欧洲空间局/欧洲空间研究与技术中心）
In this research, we provide a new, efficient method to select infrared (IR) active galatic nucleus (AGN). In the past, AGN selection in IR had been established by many studies using color-color diagrams. However, those methods have a problem in common that the number of bands is limited. The AKARI North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) survey was carried out by the AKARI Infrared Camera (IRC), which has 9 filters in mid-IR with a continuous wavelength coverage from 2 to 24$μ$m$^{-1}$. Based on the intrinsic different mid-IR features of AGN and star-forming galaxies (SFGs), we performed SED fitting to sepa…
[abridged] We use the latest release of CIGALE, a galaxy SED fitting model relying on energy balance, to study the influence of an AGN in estimating both the SFR and stellar mass in galaxies, as well as the contribution of the AGN to the power output of the host. Using the galaxy formation SAM GALFORM, we create mock galaxy SEDs using realistic star formation histories (SFH) and add an AGN of Type 1, Type 2, or intermediate type whose contribution to the bolometric luminosity can be variable. We perform an SED fitting of these catalogues with CIGALE assuming three different SFHs: a single- and…
Despite the hypothesized similar face-on viewing angles, the infrared emission of type-1 AGNs has diverse spectral energy distribution (SED) shapes that deviate substantially from the well-characterized quasar templates. Motivated by the commonly-seen UV-optical obscuration and the discovery of parsec-scale mid-IR polar dust emission in some nearby AGNs, we develop semi-empirical SED libraries for reddened type-1 AGNs built on the quasar intrinsic templates, assuming low-level extinction caused by an extended distribution of large dust grains. We demonstrate that this model can reproduce the n…
We present a new analysis of the PG quasar sample based on Spitzer and Herschel observations. (I) Assuming PAH-based star formation luminosities (L_SF) similar to Symeonidis et al. (2016, S16), we find mean and median intrinsic AGN spectral energy distributions (SEDs). These, in the FIR, appear hotter and significantly less luminous than the S16 mean intrinsic AGN SED. The differences are mostly due to our normalization of the individual SEDs, that properly accounts for a small number of very FIR-luminous quasars. Our median, PAH-based SED represents ~ 6% increase on the 1-243 micron luminosit…
Galaxy mergers are key events in galaxy evolution, often causing massive starbursts and fueling active galactic nuclei (AGN). In these highly dynamic systems, it is not yet precisely known how much starbursts and AGN respectively contribute to the total luminosity, at what interaction stages they occur, and how long they persist. Here we estimate the fraction of the bolometric infrared (IR) luminosity that can be attributed to AGN by measuring and modeling the full ultraviolet to far-infrared spectral energy distributions (SEDs) in up to 33 broad bands for 24 merging galaxies with the Code for…
Revealing what fraction of galaxies harbor AGN is central in understanding black hole accretion history of the Universe. However, optical and soft X-ray surveys miss the most highly obscured AGNs. Infrared (IR), instead, is more robust against absorption. Previous IR photometric surveys, however, only had 4 or 5 filters in mid-IR. Our AKARI North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) wide field sample has 18 filters in mid-IR (9 from AKARI, 4 from WISE, and 5 from Spitzer), for the first time, allowing a sophisticated mid-IR SED fitting diagnosis for a statistical number of sources (89178 over 5.4 deg$^2$). By …
