A Rapidly Accreting Active Galactic Nucleus Hidden in a Dust-obscured Galaxy at z ∼ 0.8

Abstract

Dust-obscured galaxies (DOGs) containing central supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that are rapidly accreting (i.e., having high Eddington ratios, λ _Edd) may represent a key phase closest to the peak of both the black hole and galaxy growth in the coevolution framework for SMBHs and galaxies. In this work, we present a 68 ks XMM-Newton observation of the high-λ _Edd DOG J1324+4501 at z ∼ 0.8, which was initially observed by Chandra. We analyze the XMM-Newton spectra jointly with archival Chandra spectra. In performing a detailed X-ray spectral analysis, we find that the source is intrinsically X-ray luminous with /erg and heavily obscured with . We further utilize UV-to-IR archival photometry to measure and fit the source's spectral energy distribution to estimate its host-galaxy properties. We present a supplementary comparison sample of 21 X-ray luminous DOGs from the XMM-SERVS survey with sufficient (>200) 0.5–10 keV counts to perform a similarly detailed X-ray spectral analysis. Of the X-ray luminous DOGs in our sample, we find that J1324+4501 is the most remarkable, possessing one of the highest X-ray luminosities, column densities, and star formation rates. We demonstrate that J1324+4501 is in an extreme evolutionary stage where SMBH accretion and galaxy growth are at their peaks.