Heavily obscured accretion is believed to be an extremely important phase in thegrowth of supermassive black holes. However, so far only a few CT AGN are knownin the local Universe, and most of them have luminosities log(Lx) < 44.4. Wepropose here to observe the 5 most luminous CT AGN at redshift z <0.2 with nohigh-quality 0.3-10keV observation available. This will increase the sample oflocal high-luminosity CT AGN by a factor of 3.5, greatly improving our knowledgeof CT obscuration at the highest accretion rates. These observations will allowto constrain the brightest end of the luminosity function of CT AGN and theevolution of the covering factor of the CT material, besides serving as abenchmark to study luminous CT AGN at higher redshifts.
Instrument
EMOS1, EMOS2, EPN, OM, RGS1, RGS2
Temporal Coverage
2017-10-31T16:50:56Z/2018-02-09T21:27:28Z
Version
17.56_20190403_1200
Mission Description
The European Space Agencys (ESA) X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission (XMM-Newton) was launched by an Ariane 504 on December 10th 1999. XMM-Newton is ESAs second cornerstone of the Horizon 2000 Science Programme. It carries 3 high throughput X-ray telescopes with an unprecedented effective area, and an optical monitor, the first flown on a X-ray observatory. The large collecting area and ability to make long uninterrupted exposures provide highly sensitive observations. Since Earths atmosphere blocks out all X-rays, only a telescope in space can detect and study celestial X-ray sources. The XMM-Newton mission is helping scientists to solve a number of cosmic mysteries, ranging from the enigmatic black holes to the origins of the Universe itself. Observing time on XMM-Newton is being made available to the scientific community, applying for observational periods on a competitive basis.
European Space Agency, Dr Claudio Ricci, 2019, 'Revealing the most highly-accreting CT AGN in the local Universe with XMM-Newton', 17.56_20190403_1200, European Space Agency, https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-y9csom9
