eRASS Hard X-ray selected AGNs Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Waddell S.G.H.
  2. Buchner J.
  3. Nandra K.
  4. Salvato M.
  5. Merloni A.
  6. Gauger I.,Boller T.
  7. Seppi R.
  8. Wolf J.
  9. Liu T.
  10. Brusa M.
  11. Comparat J.
  12. Dwelly T.,Igo Z.
  13. Musiimenta B.
  14. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

The eROSITA instrument on board the Spectrum Roentgen Gamma (SRG) satellite performed its first all-sky survey between December 2019 and June 2020. This paper presents the resulting hard X-ray (2.3-5keV) sample, the first created from an all-sky imaging survey in this energy range, for sources within the western galactic sky (eROSITA_DE). We produced a large uniform sample of hard-X-ray selected active galactic nuclei (AGN), and characterised them with supporting multi-wavelength astrometry, photometry, and spectroscopy. For the 2863 sources within the sky coverage of the DESI imaging Legacy Survey Data Release 10 (LS10; >15000deg^2^), counterparts were identified and classified. We also performed comparisons with the Swift/BAT sample and HEAO-1 AGN sample to attempt to better understand the effectiveness and sensitivity of eROSITA in the hard band. The 5466 hard X-ray selected sources detected with eROSITA are presented and discussed here. The Bayesian statistics-based code NWAY was used to identify the counterparts for the X-ray sources. These sources were classified based on their multi-wavelength properties, and the literature was searched to identify spectroscopic redshifts, which further inform the source classification. A total of 2547 sources were found to have good-quality counterparts, and 111 of these have been detected only in the hard band. The median redshift of the extragalactic sources is ~0.19. Compared with other hard X-ray selected surveys, the eROSITA hard sample covers a larger redshift range and probes dimmer sources, providing a complementary and expanded sample as compared to Swift BAT. Examining the column density distribution of missed and detected eROSITA sources present in the follow-up catalogue of Swift BAT 70 month sources, it is demonstrated that eROSITA can detect obscured sources with column densities >10^23cm^-2^ corresponding to ~14% of the full sample, but that the completeness drops rapidly thereafter. A sample of hard-only sources, many of which are likely to be obscured AGN with column densities ~10^23cm^-2^, is also presented and discussed. We caution that a large number of hard-only sources are believed to be spurious, based on simulations, and that additional cuts on counterpart quality or requiring spectroscopic redshifts should be applied to use this sample. X-ray spectral fitting reveals that these sources have extremely faint soft X-ray emission and their optical images suggest that they are found in more edge-on galaxies with lower b/a. The first eROSITA all-sky survey provided the first imaging survey above 2keV, and the resulting X-ray catalogue has been demonstrated to be a powerful tool for understanding AGN, in particular the heavily obscured AGN found in the hard-only sample.

Keywords
  1. active-galactic-nuclei
  2. x-ray-sources
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2026A&A...706A.144W
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/706/A144
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/706/A144

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http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/706/A144
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IVOA Cone Search SCS
For use with a cone search client (e.g., TOPCAT).
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History

2026-02-09T08:05:04Z
Resource record created
2026-02-09T08:05:04Z
Created
2026-03-02T06:25:50Z
Updated

Contact

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CDS support team
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