Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xfwgj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-16T14:33:43.287Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The X-Ray Background and the AGN Luminosity Function

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2016

G. Hasinger
G. Hasinger*
Affiliation:
Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam An der Sternwarte 16 14482 Potsdam Germany

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

ROSAT deep and shallow surveys have provided an almost complete inventory of the constituents of the soft X-ray background which led to a population synthesis model for the whole X-ray background with interesting cosmological consequences. According to this model the X-ray background is the “echo” of mass accretion onto supermassive black holes, integrated over cosmic time. A new determination of the soft X-ray luminosity function of active galactic nuclei (AGN) is consistent with pure density evolution, and the comoving volume density of AGN at redshift 2–3 approaches that of local normal galaxies. This indicates that many larger galaxies contain black holes and it is likely that the bulk of the black holes was produced before most of the stars in the universe. However, only X-ray surveys in the harder energy bands, where the maximum of the energy density of the X-ray background resides, will provide the acid test of this picture.

Type
IV. Structure Formation and Dark Matter
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 183: Cosmological Parameters and the Evolution of the Universe , 1999 , pp. 200 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1999 

References

Boyle, B.J. et al., 1994, MNRAS 260, 49 Google Scholar
Boyle, B.J. et al., 1995, MNRAS 272, 462 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyle, B.J., Terlevich, R.J., 1998, MNRAS submitted (astro-ph/9710134) Google Scholar
Branduardi-Raymont, G. et al., 1994, MNRAS 270, 947 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Ruiter, H. et al., 1997, A&A 319, 7 Google Scholar
Faber, S.M. et al., 1997, AJ in press (astro-ph/9610055) Google Scholar
Georgantopoulos, I. et al., 1996, MNRAS 280, 276 Google Scholar
Gioia, I.M. et al., 1990, ApJ Suppl. 72, 567 Google Scholar
Griffiths, R.E. et al., 1996, MNRAS 281, 71 Google Scholar
Hasinger, G. 1996, A&A Suppl. 120, C607 Google Scholar
Hasinger, G. et al., 1993, A&A 275, 1 Google Scholar
Hasinger, et al., 1998a, A&A, in press (astro-ph/9709142) Google Scholar
Hasinger, et al., 1998b, AN, in prep. Google Scholar
Inoue, H. 1996, MPE report 263, 323 Google Scholar
Jones, L.R. et al., 1996, MNRAS, submitted, (astro-ph/9610124) Google Scholar
Madau, P., 1996, astro-ph 9612157 Google Scholar
Mason, K. et al., 1996, priv. comm Google Scholar
McHardy, I.M. et al., 1997, MNRAS, submitted, (astro-ph/9703163) Google Scholar
Page, M.J. et al., 1996, MNRAS 281, 579 Google Scholar
Pettini, M., et al., 1997, astro-ph 9708117 Google Scholar
Rees, M., 1989, Reviews of Modern Astronomy 2, 1 Google Scholar
Roche, N. et al., 1995, MNRAS 273, 15 Google Scholar
Schmidt, K.-H., Boller, T., Voges, W., MPE report 263, 395 Google Scholar
Schmidt, M., Schneider, D.P., Gunn, J.E., 1995, AJ 110, 68 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, M. et al. 1998, A&A, in press (astro-ph/9709144) Google Scholar
Schneider, D., et al., 1998, AJ submitted Google Scholar
Shanks, T. et al. 1991, Nature 353, 315 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steidel, C. et al., 1996, AJ 112, 352 Google Scholar
Voges, W., et al., 1995, IAU Circ # 6102 Google Scholar