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S. Stevenson, B. Wilkes (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), H. Ghosh (The Ohio State University), P. Smith, G. Schmidt, D. Hines (Steward Observatory/U. of Arizona), J. Kuraszkiewicz (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), R. Cutri, B. Nelson (IPAC/Caltech)
The red active galactic nuclei (AGNs) revealed by the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS; ``red'' here refers to a J - K color greater than 2.0) have a surface density which is similar to or greater than previously known AGN, suggesting that a large fraction of the population has been missed by earlier surveys. The sample includes broad, intermediate and narrow lined AGN with the latter in the minority by a factor of ~3. This study seeks to quantify the X-ray spectral properties of these reddest AGN and examine their dependence on redshift. Toward this end, we examine a sample of 49 red AGN below z = 1. 5 objects lie above z = 0.5, with the highest-redshift object at z = 0.73. The Chandra data for our galaxies show that the sample overall is generally X-ray faint despite the low redshifts of its members. Spectral fits were performed for all objects in our sample. For a large fraction of these, we were able to obtain power-law indices and reasonable estimates for neutral hydrogen column densities. We find that the red AGN selected by the 2MASS sample typically have hard spectra suggestive of absorption at the level of NH ~1021-23 cm-2. In some cases even more spectral information can be derived: for example, one object has a 0.3-8 keV spectrum which is well fit by a power law plus blackbody disk.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.