X-ray Spectral Survey of WGACAT Quasars, I: Spectral Evolution & Low Energy Cut-offs

Abstract

We have used the WGA catalog of ROSAT PSPC X-ray sources to study the X-ray spectrum of about 500 quasars in the redshift interval 0.1--4.1, detected with a signal to noise better than 7. We have parameterized the PSPC spectrum in terms of two `effective energy spectral indices', alpha_Soft (0.1-0.8 keV), and alpha_Hard (0.4-2.4 keV), which allows for the different Galactic N_H along the quasars line of sight. We have used these data to explore the questions raised by the initial PSPC high redshift quasar studies, and in particular the occurrence of low X-ray energy cut-offs in high redshift radio-loud quasars. We have also studied the emission spectra of a large sample of radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars and studied their differences. We find that low energy X-ray cut-offs are more commonly (and perhaps exclusively) found in radio-loud quasars. Therefore the low energy X-ray cut-offs are physically associated with the quasars, and not with intervening systems, since those would affect radio-quiet and radio-loud equally. We suggest that photoelectric absorption is a likely origin of the these cut-offs.