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arXiv · 2311.18731

JADES: A large population of obscured, narrow line AGN at high redshift

Jan Scholtz·Roberto Maiolino·Francesco D'Eugenio·Emma Curtis-Lake·Stefano Carniani·Stephane Charlot·Mirko Curti·Maddie S. Silcock·Santiago Arribas·William Baker·Rachana Bhatawdekar·Kristan Boyett·Andrew J. Bunker·Jacopo Chevallard·Chiara Circosta·Daniel J. Eisenstein·Kevin Hainline·Ryan Hausen·Xihan Ji·Zhiyuan Ji·Benjamin D. Johnson·Nimisha Kumari·Tobias J. Looser·Jianwei Lyu·Michael V. Maseda·Eleonora Parlanti·Michele Perna·Marcia Rieke·Brant Robertson·Bruno Rodríguez Del Pino·Fengwu Sun·Sandro Tacchella·Hannah Übler·Giacomo Venturi·Christina C. Williams·Christopher N. A. Willmer·Chris Willott·Joris Witstok
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Abstract

We present the identification of 42 narrow-line active galactic nuclei (type-2 AGN) candidates in the two deepest observations of the JADES spectroscopic survey with JWST/NIRSpec. The spectral coverage and the depth of our observations allow us to select narrow-line AGNs based on both rest-frame optical and UV emission lines up to z=10. Due to the metallicity decrease of galaxies, at $z>3$ the standard optical diagnostic diagrams (N2-BPT or S2-VO87) become unable to distinguish many AGN from other sources of photoionisation. Therefore, we also use high ionisation lines, such as HeII$λ$4686, HeII$λ$1640, NeIV$λ$2422, NeV$λ$3420, and NV$λ$1240, also in combination with other UV transitions, to trace the presence of AGN. Out of a parent sample of 209 galaxies, we identify 42 type-2 AGN (although 10 of them are tentative), giving a fraction of galaxies in JADES hosting type-2 AGN of about $20\pm3$\%, which does not evolve significantly in the redshift range between 2 and 10. The selected type-2 AGN have estimated bolometric luminosities of $10^{41.3-44.9}$ erg s$^{-1}$ and host-galaxy stellar masses of $10^{7.2-9.3}$ M$_{\odot}$. The star formation rates of the selected AGN host galaxies are consistent with those of the star-forming main sequence. The AGN host galaxies at z=4-6 contribute $\sim$8-30 \% to the UV luminosity function, slightly increasing with UV luminosity.

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Jan Scholtz, Roberto Maiolino, Francesco D'Eugenio, Emma Curtis-Lake, Stefano Carniani, Stephane Charlot, Mirko Curti, Maddie S. Silcock, Santiago Arribas, William Baker, Rachana Bhatawdekar, Kristan Boyett, Andrew J. Bunker, Jacopo Chevallard, Chiara Circosta, Daniel J. Eisenstein, Kevin Hainline, Ryan Hausen, Xihan Ji, Zhiyuan Ji, Benjamin D. Johnson, Nimisha Kumari, Tobias J. Looser, Jianwei Lyu, Michael V. Maseda, Eleonora Parlanti, Michele Perna, Marcia Rieke, Brant Robertson, Bruno Rodríguez Del Pino, Fengwu Sun, Sandro Tacchella, Hannah Übler, Giacomo Venturi, Christina C. Williams, Christopher N. A. Willmer, Chris Willott, Joris Witstok. 2025-02-18. JADES: A large population of obscured, narrow line AGN at high redshift. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361%2F202348804

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