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MID-INFRARED SELECTION OF ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI WITH THE WIDE-FIELD INFRARED SURVEY EXPLORER . I. CHARACTERIZING WISE -SELECTED ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI IN COSMOS

2012; IOP Publishing; Volume: 753; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1088/0004-637x/753/1/30

1538-4357

Daniel Stern, Roberto J. Assef, Dominic J. Benford, A. W. Blain, R. M. Cutri, Arjun Dey, Peter Eisenhardt, Roger L. Griffith, T. H. Jarrett, Sean E. Lake, Frank J. Masci, Sara Petty, S. A. Stanford, Chao‐Wei Tsai, E. L. Wright, Lin Yan, Fiona A. Harrison, Kristin K. Madsen,

Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is an extremely capable and efficient black hole finder. We present a simple mid-infrared color criterion, W1 − W2 ⩾ 0.8 (i.e., [3.4]−[4.6] ⩾0.8, Vega), which identifies 61.9 ± 5.4 active galactic nucleus (AGN) candidates per deg2 to a depth of W2 ∼ 15.0. This implies a much larger census of luminous AGNs than found by typical wide-area surveys, attributable to the fact that mid-infrared selection identifies both unobscured (type 1) and obscured (type 2) AGNs. Optical and soft X-ray surveys alone are highly biased toward only unobscured AGNs, while this simple WISE selection likely identifies even heavily obscured, Compton-thick AGNs. Using deep, public data in the COSMOS field, we explore the properties of WISE-selected AGN candidates. At the mid-infrared depth considered, 160 μJy at 4.6 μm, this simple criterion identifies 78% of Spitzer mid-infrared AGN candidates according to the criteria of Stern et al. and the reliability is 95%. We explore the demographics, multiwavelength properties and redshift distribution of WISE-selected AGN candidates in the COSMOS field.