The X-ray to optical-UV luminosity ratio of X-ray selected type 1 AGN in XMM-COSMOS

Abstract

We present a study of the X-ray to optical properties of a sample of 545 X-ray selected type 1 AGN, from the XMM-COSMOS survey, over a wide range of redshifts (0.04 < z < 4.25) and X-ray luminosities (40.6 ≤ Log L_([2-10] keV) ≤ 45.3). About 60% of them are spectroscopically identified type 1 AGN, while the others have a reliable photometric redshift and are classified as type 1 AGN on the basis of their multi-band Spectral Energy Distributions. We discuss the relationship between UV and X-ray luminosity, as parameterized by the α_(ox) spectral slope, and its dependence on redshift and luminosity. We compare our findings with previous investigations of optically selected broad-line AGN (mostly from SDSS). A highly significant correlation between α_(ox) and L_(2500 Å) is found, in agreement with previous investigations of optically selected samples. We calculate bolometric corrections, k_(bol), for the whole sample using hard X-ray luminosities (L_([2-10] keV)), and the Eddington ratios for a subsample of 150 objects for which black hole mass estimates are available. We confirm the trend of increasing bolometric correction with increasing Eddington ratio as proposed in previous works. A tight correlation is found between α_(ox) and k_(bol), which can be used to estimate accurate bolometric corrections using only optical and X-ray data. We find a significant correlation between α_(ox) and Eddington ratio, in which the ratio between X-ray and optical flux decreases with increasing Eddington ratio.

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