Black hole growth and starburst activity at z = 0.6-4 in the Chandra Deep Field South. Host galaxies properties of obscured AGN

Abstract

Aims: The co-evolution of host galaxies and the active black holes which reside in their centre is one of the most important topics in modern observational cosmology. Here we present a study of the properties of obscured active galactic nuclei (AGN) detected in the CDFS 1 Ms observation and their host galaxies.
Methods: We limited the analysis to the MUSIC area, for which deep K-band observations obtained with ISAAC@VLT are available, ensuring accurate identifications of the counterparts of the X-ray sources as well as reliable determination of photometric redshifts and galaxy parameters, such as stellar masses and star formation rates. In particular, we: 1) refined the X-ray/infrared/optical association of 179 sources in the MUSIC area detected in the Chandra observation; 2) studied the host galaxies observed and rest frame colors and properties.
Results: We found that X-ray selected (L_X ⪆ 10⁴² erg s^-1) AGN show Spitzer colors consistent with both AGN and starburst dominated infrared continuum; the latter would not have been selected as AGN from infrared diagnostics. The host galaxies of X-ray selected obscured AGN are all massive (M_ast > 10¹⁰ M_⊙) and, in 50% of the cases, are also actively forming stars (1/SSFR < t_Hubble) in dusty environments. The median L/L_Edd value of the active nucleus is between 2% and 10% depending on the assumed M_BH/M_ast ratio. Finally, we found that the X-ray selected AGN fraction increases with the stellar mass up to a value of 30% at z > 1 and M_ast > 3 × 10¹¹ M_⊙, a fraction significantly higher than in the local Universe for AGN of similar luminosities.

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