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B.J. Wilkes (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), R. Cutri (IPAC), D. Hines (UofA), B. Nelson (IPAC), G.D. Schmidt (UofA), P.S. Smith (UofA)
The Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) is finding previously unidentified, luminous red active galactic nuclei (AGNs). This new AGN population has a number density similar to, or greater than, previously known AGN, suggesting that a large fraction of the AGN population has been missed. Their unusually high polarization levels and broad emission lines in the polarized spectra of several sources strongly indicates the presence of a hidden QSO which is revealed in scattered light. We are making Chandra observations of a well-defined subset of these sources with B - KS > 4.3 and KS < 13.8 to measure the AGN strength and the column density of obscuring gas and to complete the near-IR--X-ray spectral energy distributions (SEDs). With half the sample observed, we find that all are X-ray faint with the IR-optical slope providing a good prediction of the X-ray strength. The X-ray hardness ratios cover a wide range, generally indicating NH ~1021-23 cm-2, but the softest sources show no evidence for intrinsic absorption. This implies that a mix of absorbed, direct emission and unabsorbed, scattered or extended emission contributes to the X-ray flux from these sources.
We gratefully ackowledge the financial support of NASA grant: NAS8-39073