A hard X-ray view of Luminous and Ultra-luminous Infrared Galaxies in GOALS: I - AGN obscuration along the merger sequence

Ricci, C., et al.
The merger of two or more galaxies can enhance the inflow of material from galactic scales into the close environments of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), obscuring and feeding the supermassive black hole (SMBH). Both recent simulations and observations of AGN in mergers have confirmed that mergers are related to strong nuclear obscuration. However, it is still unclear how AGN obscuration evolves in the last phases of the merger process. We study a sample of 60 luminous and ultra-luminous IR galaxies (U/LIRGs) from the GOALS sample observed by NuSTAR. We find that the fraction of AGNs that are Compton thick (CT; NH ≥ 1024 cm-2) peaks at 74+14 −19 per cent at a late merger stage, prior to coalescence, when the nuclei have projected separations (dsep) of 0.4-6 kpc. A similar peak is also observed in the median NH [(1.6 ± 0.5) × 1024 cm−2]. The vast majority (85+7 −9 per cent) of the AGNs in the final merger stages (dsep ≤ 10 kpc) are heavily obscured (NH ≥ 1023 cm−2), and the median NH of the accreting SMBHs in our sample is systematically higher than that of local hard X-ray-selected AGN, regardless of the merger stage. This implies that these objects have very obscured nuclear environments, with the NH ≥ 1023 cm−2 gas almost completely covering the AGN in late mergers. CT AGNs tend to have systematically higher absorption-corrected X-ray luminosities than less obscured sources. This could either be due to an evolutionary effect, with more obscured sources accreting more rapidly because they have more gas available in their surroundings, or to a selection bias. The latter scenario would imply that we are still missing a large fraction of heavily obscured, lower luminosity (L2−10 ≤ 1043 erg s−1) AGNs in U/LIRGs.
LCH was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFA0400702) and the National Science Foundation of China (11721303 and 11991052). CR acknowledges support from the Fondecyt Iniciacion grant 11190831. ET acknowledges support from CATA-Basal AFB-170002, FONDECYT Regular grant 1190818, ANID Anillo ACT172033, and Millennium Nucleus NCN19_058 (TITANs). FEB acknowledges support from ANID – Millennium Science Initiative Program – ICN12_009, CATA-Basal – AFB-170002, and FONDECYT Regular – 1190818 and 1200495. SA gratefully acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 789410). VU acknowledges funding support from NASA Astrophysics Data Analysis Program (ADAP) Grant 80NSSC20K0450. AMM acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation under grant number 2009416. KI acknowledges support by the Spanish MICINN under grant Proyecto/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and ‘Unit of excellence María de Maeztu 2020-2023’ awarded to ICCUB (CEX2019-000918-M). PA acknowledges financial support from ANID Millennium Nucleus NCN19-058 (TITANS) and the Max Planck Society through a Partner Group. HI acknowledges support from JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP19K23462.