# The contribution of faint AGN to the hard X-ray background

## 1 Introduction

While it is now clear that the Cosmic X-ray Background (XRB) is made by the superposition of many discrete sources, and that the soft (0.5–2 keV) XRB is mostly produced by AGN (Hasinger et al. 1998, Schmidt et al. 1998), the nature of the sources making the energetically dominant hard (2–50 keV) XRB is still largely unknown. This is due to the lack, until recent years, of sensitive imaging instruments above 2–3 keV. Thanks to ASCA and BeppoSAX, the 2-10 keV band is now accessible to surveys (Boyle et al. 1998, Ueda et al. 1998, Giommi et al. 1998, Giommi, Fiore & Perri 1998, Fiore et al. 1998a,b). The hard X-ray sky poses major problems: no known large class of sources has an emission spectrum matching the kT$`40`$ keV thermal–like spectrum of the XRB; fluctuation analyses of Ginga data (Warwick & Stewart 1989), and ASCA (Georgantopoulos et al. 1997, Cagnoni et al. 1998) and BeppoSAX (Giommi et al. 1998, Giommi, Fiore & Perri 1998) 2–10 keV source counts, require 2–3 times as many sources as expected from ROSAT counts, if they have the steep power law spectrum typical of ROSAT sources ($`1<\alpha _E<2`$, $`F(E)E^{\alpha _E}`$). The leading suggestion to reconcile the source counts, based both on theoretical grounds (Setti & Woltjer 1989, Madau et al. 1994, Matt & Fabian 1994, Comastri et al. 1995) and high energy observations of bright nearby AGN (Zdziarski et al 1995, Smith & Done 1996), is that heavily obscured AGN, emerging strongly at high energies, are the main contributors to the hard XRB. (These AGN are probably not completely invisible at low X-ray energies, i.e. $`1`$ keV, because even if the nuclear emission is completely blocked, different components, like starburts, optically thin gas or scattering of the nuclear radiation, may still be detectable at the 1%–10% level, Giommi, Fiore & Perri 1998, Schachter et al. 1998). It is crucial to test these suggestions observationally in a band where the nucleus is directly visible and down to fluxes where the bulk of the hard XRB is produced. Hard X-ray selection would also help in distinguishing between different scenarios. For instance, if the bulk of the XRB is made by obscured luminous ‘quasar 2’, following the evolution of type 1 AGN, the peak of their activity should be at z=2–3 and then decrease quickly toward lower redshifts. On the other hand, the XRB could be mostly made by a large population of less luminous/active obscured AGN, spread in a broader interval of redshifts. The solution of these problems may have impact also on AGN unification schemes.

The BeppoSAX MECS (Boella et al. 1997a,b) provides a good opportunity to investigate the hard X-ray sky, thanks to its good sensitivity above 5 keV (5-10 keV flux limit of $`0.002`$ mCrab in 100 ks), and improved point spread function (PSF). We have thus carried out the High Energy LLarge Area Survey (HELLAS). The survey has been performed in the hard 5-10 keV band because this is the band closest to the maximum of the XRB energy density that is reachable with the current imaging X-ray telescopes. Including the softer 1.5-5 keV range would only increase the background for faint, heavily absorbed sources, thus reducing the chances of their detection. Secondly, the BeppoSAX MECS PSF improves with energy, and in the 5-10 keV band provides error circles of 1 arcmin, 95% confidence radius, small enough to allow the optical identification of the X-ray sources. The HELLAS survey has so far cataloged 180 sources (Fiore et al. 1999, in preparation). The sky coverage is $`250`$ square degrees at $`F_{510keV}=550\times 10^{14}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ respectively. At the fainter limit we find between 16 and 20 sources deg<sup>-2</sup> (Fiore et al. 1998a,b, Giommi, Fiore & Perri 1998, Comastri 1998), implying that about 30 % of the XRB is resolved. Cross-correlations of the HELLAS sample with catalogs of cosmic sources provides 18 coincidences (7 radio-loud AGN, 6 radio-quiet AGN, 3 clusters of galaxies, 1 CV and 1 normal star), suggesting that most of the HELLAS sources are AGN. However, the 13 AGN were discovered in radio, soft X-ray, and optical surveys, and so this sample is biased against highly obscured sources. To remove this bias we have started a program to spectroscopically identify the rest of the HELLAS sample. In this letter we report on the first results of this program. The sources studied have not been selected according to their X-ray or optical properties but solely because of visibility during our observing runs. As a result, they can be considered representative of the whole HELLAS sample.

## 2 Optical Identifications

We carried out spectroscopic identification of optical candidates for the HELLAS sources using the RC spectrograph (RCSP) at the Kitt Peak 4m telescope for 9 sources, the FAST spectrograph at the Whipple 60” telescope for 1 source, the Hawaii 88” for 2 sources and EFOSC2 at the ESO 3.6m for 2 sources. Long-slit spectra have been obtained in the 3450-8500 $`\AA `$ range (RCSP) or 3800-8000 $`\AA `$ range (FAST, 88”, EFOSC2), with a resolution between 7 and 16 Å. Between 1 and 7 optical candidates were identified on APM or Cosmos scans of the E (R) POSS plates down to R$`20`$m, within a conservative (95 %) error-circle radius of 60<sup>′′</sup>. The complete set of spectra will be presented elsewhere (La Franca et al. 1999 in preparation). We identified the X-ray source with the more plausible object in the error box (if any), i.e. either sources with high hard X-ray to optical ratio (like AGN, Galactic binaries, clusters and groups of galaxies) or bright galaxies and stars. Unlike previous identification campaigns of ASCA sources, we decided not to take advantage of correlations with ROSAT source catalogs or Radio catalogs, to avoid selection biases against obscured objects. Instead, our basic strategy is to obtain spectra of all candidates down to the chosen R=20 magnitude limit. However, in 4 cases a few faint candidates still remain to be observed in each error-box. Their magnitude is fainter than that of the candidate identified as an AGN, and therefore the identification of the X-ray source with the AGN is rather secure. In twelve cases we obtained a unique identification (only one plausible candidate in the error-box). In one case we found 2 sources in the error-circles which could contribute to the detected hard X-ray flux (designated A,B in Table 1). In one case none of the 6 objects observed with $`17<R<20`$ were good candidates for being the X-ray source. All fields but one (0122.1-5845) have been observed with the VLA as part of the NVSS survey. No radio source brighter than 3 mJy is found within any of the HELLAS error-boxes. Given the sources’ optical magnitude this implies that all objects can be considered as radio-quiet. Table 1 gives, for each of the identified sources, the position of the optical counterpart and its distance from the X-ray centroid in arcsec, its redshift, R and B magnitudes, optical and X-ray luminosities and the classification.

Broad emission line quasars with a normal blue continuum, $`1.3<\alpha <+0.1`$ ($`F(\nu )=\nu ^\alpha `$, $`0.17<`$z$`<1.28`$), were found in five error-boxes. Broad emission line quasars with a very ‘red’ continuum were found in two cases ($`\alpha (50008000\AA )3`$, consistent with their B-R color (see Table 1). Their spectra are dominated by starlight, based on the detection of the Calcium H and K and MgI absorption features and the small equivalent width of H$`\alpha `$ (90 Å) observed in 1SAXJ1353.9+1820. In this case we could estimate a lower limit to the extinction of A$`{}_{V}{}^{}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{_>}{^{}}4.8`$, corresponding to log$`N_H>21.9`$ assuming a Galactic dust to gas ratio. So, this quasar appears ‘red’ both because the spectrum is dominated by starlight from the host galaxy and because of the large extinction to the nucleus. Narrow emission line galaxies were found in 6 error-boxes. To identify their nature we used the standard line ratios diagnostics (Tresse et al. 1996, see Table 2). Five sources show large \[OIII\]$`\lambda 5007`$/H$`\beta `$ ($`10`$) and/or large \[SII\]$`\lambda 6725`$/H$`\alpha `$ ratios. Two sources also show strong \[NeV\] lines, which unambiguously identify them as narrow line AGN (Schmidt et al. 1998). In all five sources H$`\alpha `$ or H$`\beta `$ have faint wings of FWZI 3000–5000 km s<sup>-1</sup>, broader than the typical value for AGN Narrow Line Region lines. We then classify these sources as intermediate 1.8-1.9 type AGN (Osterbrook 1981). In one error-boxes we found a narrow emission line galaxy, having \[SII\]$`\lambda 6725`$/H$`\alpha `$ and \[OII\]$`\lambda 3727`$/H$`\beta `$ ratios indicating a lower excitation than in Seyfert 1.8-2 galaxies but close to or higher than the value which separate HII galaxies from LINER (Tresse et al. 1996). We tentatively classify it as a LINER. Figure 1 shows two examples of HELLAS AGN.

In summary, 12 of the 14 HELLAS error-boxes studied contain AGNs and 1 contains a LINER. We have checked how many of the optical sources lie within 30 arcsec from PSPC sources in the WGACAT. We found six coincidences: 0045.7-2515, 1118.2+4028, 1118.8+4026, 1117.8+4018, 1218.9+2958 (also visible in the ASCA GIS field of Mark766), and 2226.5+2111. Another 4 sources (0122.1-5845, 1353.9+1820, 1519.5+6535, 1134.7+7024) lie in PSPC fields but are not detected in the WGACAT.

The surface density of quasars at R=20 (the magnitude of the faintest of our quasars) is 20–40 deg<sup>-2</sup> (Zitelli et al. 1992) and therefore the expected number of chance coincidences in our 14 error-boxes is 0.25-0.5. The surface density of galaxies at R$`\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{_<}{^{}}`$19 (the magnitude of the faintest of our Seyfert 1.8–1.9 galaxies and LINER) is about 500 deg<sup>-2</sup> (Lilly et al. 1995). Tresse et al. (1996) found that between 8 and 17 % of the galaxies with z$`<0.3`$ host Seyfert 1.8–2 or LINER nuclei. Hammer et al. (1997) found that $`11\%`$ of the higher redshift and luminosity CFRS galaxies host type 1.8–2 nuclei. The surface density of R$`\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{_<}{^{}}19`$ type 1.8–2 AGN and LINER is therefore 45–90 deg<sup>-2</sup>. The number of their chance coincidences in the total area covered by 14 error-boxes is so 0.5–1. We note that for the AGN this is actually an upper limit, since the distribution of the magnitudes of the type 1.8–1.9 AGN in Table 1 is different from a typical galaxy logN-logS, and because two of the type 1.8–1.9 AGN are also PSPC sources. We then conclude that the identification of the quasars and type 1.8-1.9 AGN is rather secure, while for the LINER we cannot exclude a chance coincidence.

## 3 X-ray and X-ray/optical colours

Since for the sources in Table 1 we have redshifts, luminosities, optical spectroscopy and X-ray colours, we can start addressing the question of which kind of AGN populates the hard X-ray sky. X-ray hardness ratios can be used to estimate the X-ray spectrum. Assuming an absorbing column equal to the Galactic column along the line of sight, produces rather unlikely spectral indices for the 1.8-1.9 type AGN and the ‘red’ quasars ($`0.5<\alpha _E<0`$), harder than the $`\alpha _E=0.4`$ of the 3-15 keV XRB spectrum and of any known AGN. On the other hand, assuming a typical AGN power law spectrum of energy index $`\alpha _E=0.8`$ and the source redshift, we obtain the $`N_H`$ values given in Table 1. (For the unidentified source we assumed z=0 and so the relative $`N_H`$ is a lower limit to the true absorbing column.) The distribution of log$`N_H`$ is plotted in Figure 2, along with the distribution predicted by the Comastri et al. (1995) syntesis model in the 5-10 keV band and at the flux limit of our survey. The two distributions agree quite well. At a first sight the lack of heavily absorbed Compton thick (log$`N_H>24`$, i.e. the nuclear emission is completely blocked below 10 keV) sources in our survey is at variance with the recent findings of Maiolino et al. (1998) and Risaliti et al. (1999). However it should be noted that their results have been derived from an optically selected sample of bright, nearby Seyfert 1.8-2 galaxies, and thus the comparison with our survey is not straigthforward. The distribution in Figure 4 of Risaliti et al. (1999) is the expected one at the flux limit where most of the XRB is resolved. Our survey resolves only a fraction of the XRB and therefore it misses the sources in which large absorption (log$`N_H>24`$) reduces the 5-10 keV flux below our flux limit.

The hard X-ray to optical ratio (X/O) of HELLAS AGN is similar to that of nearby Seyfert 1 and Compton thin Seyfert 1.8-1.9 galaxies (from the samples of Bassani et al. 1999, Matt et al 1999). The HELLAS sources can so be considered as their higher redshift (up to z=0.4) analogs. It is worth noticing that another intermediate type 1.9, Compton thin quasar has been discovered by Almaini et al (1995) and Georgantopoulos et al. (1998) at even higher redshift (z=2.35). Conversely, the X/O of the local Compton thick Seyfert 2 galaxies (Maiolino et al. 1998) with $`F_{510keV}=210\times 10^{13}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ is lower by a factor 30-100. The study of faint Compton thick Seyfert 2 (Maiolino et al. 1998) at z=0.2–0.4 and V$`19`$ (which should have $`F_{510keV}=10^{15}10^{14}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ ) must therefore await instruments with sensitivity higher than ASCA and BeppoSAX, like those on board AXAF and XMM.

## 4 Discussion and Conclusions

Our results, obtained using a purely hard X-ray selected sample and based on new identifications as well as correlation of the HELLAS sample with catalogs of known sources, provide strong evidence that most of the sources resolved down to a 5-10 keV flux level of $`8\times 10^{14}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ are AGN. The amount of absorption in these AGN is consistent with the prediction of AGN synthesis models of the XRB (Comastri et al. 1995) in the 5-10 keV band and at the above flux limit. However, the source breakdown is rather peculiar. In addition to five ‘blue’ continuum broad line quasars, which dominate optical and soft X-ray surveys, we found 7 “intermediate” AGN. These objects are “intermediate” both for their optical spectra which pose them between type 1 and type 2 AGN and because of their X-ray absorption, which is typically log$`N_H`$=22.5-23 (estimated from hardness ratios). ‘Red’ quasars have been selected in the past in the radio band (Smith & Spinrad 1980, Webster et al. 1995) or in soft X-rays (provided that the absorbing column is not too large, A$`{}_{V}{}^{}\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{_<}{^{}}2`$, log$`N_H<21.7`$, Kim & Elvis 1998). Their number density relative to ‘blue’ quasars is thought to be a few percent. In contrast, we found a fraction of $``$30%, showing that hard X-ray selection may be a more efficient and less biased way to search for ‘red’ quasars. The fraction of AGN showing evidence of extinction/absorption to the nucleus in optical/X-ray (7 out of 12 AGN) is $`0.58_{0.18}^{+0.17}`$ (Gehrels 1986, $`1\sigma `$ confidence level). The fraction of intermediate AGN + narrow line galaxies in the ROSAT 0.5-2 keV survey of the Lockman hole ($`F_{0.52keV}>5.5\times 10^{15}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ , Schmidt et al. 1998), and in the shallower Cambridge-Cambridge ROSAT Serendipity Survey (CRSS, $`F_{0.52keV}>2\times 10^{14}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ , Boyle et al, 1995a,b) is 0.28$`\pm `$0.09 (11 objects out 39) and 0.15$`\pm `$0.05 (12 objects out of 80), respectively. The same fraction in the ASCA-ROSAT combined surveys of Boyle et al. (1998) and Akiyama et al. (1998) is 0.33$`\pm `$0.08 (20 objects out of 61). We calculated, using both the Fisher exact probability test (Siegel 1956) and the Barnes (1994) test on the difference of two proportions, the probability that the HELLAS and the Lockman hole, CRSS and ASCA-ROSAT samples differs in the proportion of obscured objects. This probability is $`95\%`$ for HELLAS/Lockman hole samples, $`99\%`$ for the HELLAS/CRSS samples and $`90\%`$ for the HELLAS/ASCA-ROSAT samples, for both statistical tests. While more HELLAS identifications will clearly be useful to strengthen this result, the above probabilities already indicate a difference between the HELLAS sample and at least the two ROSAT samples. Furthermore, while all HELLAS ‘blue’ quasars in PSPC fields are detected down to a typical WGACAT flux limit of $`15\times 10^{14}`$ $`\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ , only three of the six ‘intermediate’ AGN in PSPC fields are detected at this flux limit (see Table 1 and Sect 2), again indicating that ROSAT surveys are more biased against faint highly obscured objects that our survey.

We did not find any luminous ($`L_X>10^{44}`$ erg s<sup>-1</sup>, highly absorbed (log$`N_H>23`$) quasar 2. However, one of the ‘red’ quasar in our sample has an high X-ray luminosity and may have an absorbing column as high as log$`N_H`$=23. Almaini et al. (1995) discovered an highly obscured quasar at z=2.35, which has been classified as an intermediate 1.9 AGN by Georgantopoulos et al. 1998. Akiyama et al. (1998) report the discovery of 2 luminous broad line quasars with a very hard (possibly absorbed) X-ray spectrum. One of our ‘blue’ quasar may have absorption in excess of log$`N_H`$=22. Although the statistics are not yet good enough to reach firm conclusions, these few positive detections and the absence of even a single detection of a narrow line quasar 2 (Halpern et al. 1998) suggest that X-ray absorption in high luminosity objects may be associated more frequantly with intermediate type 1.5-1.9 AGN, ‘red’ quasars, or even normal ‘blue’ quasars, rather than with pure type 2 objects. The bulk of the hard XRB could be made by a large population of Seyfert 1.8–2 like galaxies and moderately absorbed ‘red’ and intermediate quasars (see also Kim & Elvis 1998). This is in line with scenarios where the absorption takes place in a starburst region surrounding the nucleus (Fabian et al. 1998). In this case the amount of the absorbing gas may depend on the nuclear mass (and luminosity), and then the evolution of the type 2 AGN luminosity function would also be strongly affected by the nuclear environment and may imply a link between AGN evolution and the history of star-formation as measured from optical and sub-mm surveys (see e.g. Madau et al. 1996, Lilly et al. 1998). In this regard, it is worth remarking that a sizeable population of low luminosity AGN (M<sub>B</sub> in the range –17; –20) may exist at very faint optical fluxes (V=26-27) in the Hubble Deep Field North (Jarvis & MacAlpine 1998). This conclusion will soon be tested by the deep and high spatial resolution surveys that will be performed by AXAF and XMM in the next few years. These deep surveys, together with the shallower but larger area surveys perfomed by ASCA and BeppoSAX, should be able to discriminate between different scenarios for the XRB and provide information on the connection between AGN and galaxy evolution.

Acknowledgements

We thank the BeppoSAX SDC, SOC and OCC teams for the successful operation of the satellite and preliminary data reduction and screaning, A. Matteuzzi for his work on MECS source position reconstruction, P. Massey for his help at the Kitt Peak 4m telescope, P. Berlind for the Whipple 60” spectra of the 1SAXJ1519.5+6535 field, G. C. Perola, M. Vietri and G. Zamorani for a careful reading of the manuscript and useful discussions.