XMM-Newton Bright Serendipitous Survey: AGN X-Ray Spectral Properties

From the individual analysis, the authors find that there seems to be an anticorrelation between the spectral index and the sources' hard X-ray luminosity, such that the average photon index for the higher luminosity sources (>10⁴⁴ erg s^-1) is significantly (>2 sigma) flatter than the average for the lower luminosity sources. They also find that the intrinsic column density distribution agrees with AGN unified schemes, although a number of exceptions are found (3% of the whole sample), which are much more common among optically classified type 2 AGN.

The authors also find that the so-called "soft-excess", apart from the intrinsic absorption, constitutes the principal deviation from a power-law shape in AGN X-ray spectra and it clearly displays different characteristics, and likely a different origin, for unabsorbed and absorbed AGN. Regarding the shape of the average spectra, they find that it is best reproduced by a combination of an unabsorbed (absorbed) power law, a narrow Fe K-alpha emission line and a small (large) amount of reflection for unabsorbed (absorbed) sources.

This table was created by the HEASARC in November 2011 based on <a href="cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/A+A/530/A42">CDS Catalog J/A+A/530/A42</a> files table2.dat and table3.dat. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .