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B.J. Wilkes, Himel Ghosh (Harvard-Smithsonian), R. Cutri (IPAC), D. Hines (UofA), B. Nelson (IPAC), G.D. Schmidt, P.S. Smith (UofA)
The Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) red AGN catalog has revealed a previously unknown population whose number density rivals that of optically-selected AGN as found in the many, relatively shallow surveys (e.g. PG, Hamburg). The Chandra X-ray spectra of these red, mostly broad-line AGN are hard. This, combined with their unusually high optical polarization, suggests substantial obscuration (log \rm NH = 21-23 cm-2) toward the nuclear energy source, despite a clear view of the broad emission line region. We have expanded our Chandra-observed sub-sample to include 20 more 2MASS AGN yielding a set of 46 which includes all available optical classes. This sample is thus pre-selected for complex absorption and sufficient to study the relative X-ray and optical obscuration for each AGN class. Those observed to date continue the lack of a relation between the X-ray hardness ratio and optical class noted in our earlier sample. Combining this with X-ray spectral fits where we have sufficient counts and with our multi-wavelength data, we compare the spectral energy distributions with those of normal and other red AGN and investigate possible scenarios for the absorbing material.
We gratefully ackowledge the financial support of NASA grant: GO1-2112A
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35 #3
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.