J/ApJS/221/12 AGNs in the MIR using AllWISE data (Secrest+, 2015)
Identification of 1.4 million active galactic nuclei in the mid-infrared
using WISE data.
Secrest N.J., Dudik R.P., Dorland B.N., Zacharias N., Makarov V., Fey A.,
Frouard J., Finch C.
<Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 221, 12 (2015)>
=2015ApJS..221...12S 2015ApJS..221...12S (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: Active gal. nuclei ; Photometry, infrared ; Redshifts ;
Cross identifications ; Surveys
Keywords: astrometry; catalogs; infrared: galaxies; infrared: stars;
galaxies: active; quasars: general
Abstract:
We present an all-sky sample of ∼1.4 million active galactic nuclei
(AGNs) meeting a two-color infrared photometric selection criteria for
AGNs as applied to sources from the Wide-field Infrared Survey
Explorer final catalog release (AllWISE). We assess the spatial
distribution and optical properties of our sample and find that the
results are consistent with expectations for AGNs. These sources have
a mean density of ∼38 AGNs per square degree on the sky, and their
apparent magnitude distribution peaks at g∼20, extending to objects as
faint as g∼26. We test the AGN selection criteria against a large
sample of optically identified stars and determine the "leakage" (that
is, the probability that a star detected in an optical survey will be
misidentified as a quasi-stellar object (QSO) in our sample) rate to
be ≤4.0x10-5. We conclude that our sample contains almost no
optically identified stars (≤0.041%), making this sample highly
promising for future celestial reference frame work as it
significantly increases the number of all-sky, compact extragalactic
objects. We further compare our sample to catalogs of known AGNs/QSOs
and find a completeness value of ≳84% (that is, the probability of
correctly identifying a known AGN/QSO is at least 84%) for AGNs
brighter than a limiting magnitude of R≲19. Our sample includes
approximately 1.1 million previously uncataloged AGNs.
Description:
The WISE survey is an all-sky mid-IR survey at 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22um
(W1, W2, W3, and W4, respectively) conducted between 2010 January 7
and August 6. WISE has angular resolutions of 6.1", 6.4", 6.5", and
12.0" in its four bands. The AllWISE data release, which we use for
this work, incorporates data from the WISE Full Cryogenic, 3-Band
Cryo, and NEOWISE Post-Cryo survey (Mainzer et al. 2014ApJ...792...30M 2014ApJ...792...30M)
phases.
File Summary:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ReadMe 80 . This file
table1.dat 143 1354775 Mid-IR AGNs data
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See also:
VII/273 : The Half Million Quasars (HMQ) catalogue (Flesch, 2015)
VII/270 : SDSS quasar catalog: tenth data release (Paris+, 2014)
II/328 : AllWISE Data Release (Cutri+ 2013)
J/A+A/583/A75 : Large Quasar Astrometric Catalog 3 (LQAC-3) (Souchay+, 2015)
J/AJ/150/58 : VLBI ICRF2 (Fey+, 2015)
J/ApJ/807/129 : X-ray to MIR luminosities relation of AGNs (Stern, 2015)
J/ApJ/772/26 : AGN with WISE. II. The NDWFS Bootes field (Assef+, 2013)
J/ApJS/205/6 : T dwarf population revealed by WISE (Mace+, 2013)
J/A+A/537/A99 : Large Quasar Astrometric Catalog 2 (LQAC-2) (Souchay+, 2012)
J/AJ/144/49 : Quasars from SDSS-DR7, WISE and UKIDSS surveys (Wu+, 2012)
J/ApJ/754/45 : IR properties of Swift/BAT X-ray AGNs (Ichikawa+, 2012)
J/ApJS/197/19 : First brown dwarfs discovered by WISE (Kirkpatrick+, 2011)
J/AJ/133/186 : Optical spectroscopy of 77 luminous AGNs and QSOs (Lacy+, 2007)
J/A+A/418/465 : Mid-infrared and hard X-ray emission in AGN (Lutz+, 2004)
http://www.sdss3.org/ : SDSS-III home page
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 19 A19 --- WISEA AllWISE IAU identifier (JHHMMSS.ss+DDMMSS.s)
21- 31 F11.7 deg RAdeg AllWISE Right Ascension (J2000)
33- 43 F11.7 deg DEdeg AllWISE Declination (J2000)
45- 48 F4.2 mag W1-W2 [0.4/2.6] AllWISE W1-W2 (3.4-4.6um) color index
50- 53 F4.2 mag W2-W3 [1.9/7.8] AllWISE W2-W3 (4.6-12um) color index
55- 59 F5.2 mag W1mag [4.5/19] AllWISE W1 (3.4um) magnitude
61- 65 F5.2 mag gmag [0/25.8]? Compiled g band magnitude;
SDSS bandpass (1)
77- 84 F8.5 --- z [-0.002/7.02]? Compiled Redshift (2)
86 A1 --- f_z [ps] Flag on Redshift, s=spec; p=photo
88- 98 A11 --- LQAC2 LQAC2 identifier (Souchay+ 2012, J/A+A/537/A99)
100-117 A18 --- DR12Q DR12Q identifier
119-143 A25 --- HMQ MILLIQUAS identifier (Flesch+, 2015, VII/273)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): Compiled g magnitude taken from the Large Quasar Astrometric Catalog,
version 2 (LQAC2; Souchay et al. 2012, J/A+A/537/A99) unless missing
then taken from SDSS-DR12 Quasar Catalog (DR12Q, I. Paris 2015,
private communication).
Note (2): Compiled redshift taken from LQAC2, then from DR12Q (see note 1),
else from the heterogenous Million Quasars (MILLI-QUAS) Catalog, E. Flesch,
version 4.51 (http://quasars.org/milliquas.htm; Cat. VII/273).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 27-Jan-2016