We present new results on the the MBH-M∗ relation of X-ray obscured, red QSOs at high redshift (1.2<z<2.6). The sample is made of 21 red QSOs, nine of them are new sources for which near-infrared spectra have been obtained with SINFONI and XShooter observations at ESO VLT, and show a broad Hα component. The rest of the sample (12 sources) is made of sources taken from the literature with similar properties. From the broad Hα line we have computed the BH masses through the virial formula while stellar masses have been obtained through multi-component SED fitting.

We find that red QSOs preferentially lie on the local relation up to z ~ 2.6 with the most massive objects mainly located above it. We also studied the evolution of these sources on the MBH-M∗ plane compared to a sample of optically blue type–1 QSOs and we find that obscured red QSOs show a constant MBH/M∗ ratio consistent/slightly higher than the local one but lower than what has been found for blue QSOs. These sources may represent the intermediate phase (blow-out phase) between the major-merger induced starbursts which appear as ULIRGs and SMGs and the optical type–1 blue QSOs which are revealed once the dust and nuclear gas is cleared up.

Completing the census of AGN in the Universe is the key to understanding the cosmic evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBH) and galaxies, and to resolving the spectrum of the X-ray background (XRB). However, a large population of AGN, especially the heavily obscured, Compton-thick AGN, are still missing from even the deepest X-ray surveys. The infrared spectra energy distribution (SED) of distant star-forming galaxies can reveal the presence of bright AGN activity. Using some of the deepest infrared, X-ray and radio data available in the GOODS fields, we identify a population of infrared bright quasars at redshift z ~ 2, which are often missed in the X-ray band. Amongst these sources the number of obscured and heavily-obscured quasars is much higher than those previously found in several X-ray and optical selected samples. A unique view on these heavily-obscured quasars is now given at high energies by NuSTAR. I will present the first NuSTAR detection of a heavily obscured quasar at z 2. This source is a potential archetype of the heavily-obscured high-z AGN in which most of the black hole growth is happening, that can explain the mysterious missing fraction of the XRB.

The advent of Fermi is changing our understanding on the radio and γ-ray emission in active galactic nuclei. Unlike pre-Fermi ideas, BL Lac objects are found to be the most abundant emitters in the γ-ray band. However, since they are relatively weak radio sources, most of their parsec-scale structure and their multifrequency properties are poorly understood and/or have not been investigated in a systematic fashion. Here we are analyzing the radio and γ-ray emission properties of a sample of 42 BL Lacs selected with no constraint on their radio and γ-ray emission. Thanks to new Very Long Baseline Array observations at 8 and 15 GHz for the whole sample, we discuss their parsec-scale structure. Parsec-scale radio emission is observed in the majority of the sources at both frequencies. The comparison between our results in radio and gamma-ray bands points out the presence of a large number of faint BL Lacs showing “non-classical” properties such as low source compactness, low core dominance, no gamma-ray emission.

I have combined data from sky surveys in the UV to the mid-IR, along with radio and X-ray data, to identify the most luminous QSOs in the Universe. The primary sky surveys were the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) 7th Data Release QSO Catalog, which provides unambiguous broad-line QSO classification and robust redshifts, and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mid-IR catalog, because a large percentage of QSO bolometric luminous emerges in the IR. Out of the 100,000 SDSS/WISE QSOs, we find 140 (< 0.2%) with bolometric luminosity greater than 2×1014Lo, with redshifts ranging from about 1.7 to 5. The most luminous QSO found has Lbol ≈7×1014Lo. Merger-based galaxy evolution models predict that the host galaxies of such sources at peak QSO luminosity are undergoing a short-lived phase of extreme AGN feedback and massive star-formation activity after a major merger. Upcoming sub-mm observations with the new Atacama Large Millimeter/Sub-millimeter Array (ALMA), for a subset of the sample, will soon reveal crucial host galaxy properties of this unique sample.

Until recently, the radio sky above 5 GHz was relatively unexplored. This has changed with the completion of the Australia Telescope 20 GHz survey (AT20G; Murphy et al., 2010); a blind survey of the southern sky down to a limiting flux density of 40 mJy. The AT20G survey provides by far the largest and most complete sample of high-frequency radio sources yet obtained, offering new insights into the nature of the high-frequency active galaxy population. Whilst the radio data provides a unique sample of objects, these data alone are insufficient to completely constrain models of radio source properties and the evolution of radio galaxies. Complementary multiwavelength data is vital in understanding the physical properties of the central black hole.

In this talk I will provide a brief overview of the AT20G survey, followed by a discussion of the multiwavelength properties of the high-frequency source population. In particular, I will focus on the optical properties of AT20G sources, which are very different to those of a low-frequency selected sample, along with the gamma-ray properties where we find a correlation between high-frequency radio flux density and gamma-ray flux density. By studying the multiwavelength properties of a large sample of high-frequency radio sources we gain a unique perspective on the inner dynamics of some of the most active AGN.

We present a highly reliable and efficient mid-infrared colour-based selection technique for luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN) using the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) survey. Our technique is designed to identify objects with red mid-infrared power-law spectral energy distributions. We studied the dependency of our mid-infrared selection on the AGN intrinsic luminosity and the effectiveness of our technique to uncover obscured AGN missed in X-ray surveys. To do so we used two samples of luminous AGN independently selected in hard X-ray and optical surveys. We used the largest catalogue of 887 [OIII] λ5007-selected type 2 quasars (QSO2s) at z≲0.83 in the literature from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and the 258 hard (>4.5 keV) X-ray-selected AGN from the Bright Ultrahard XMM-Newton Survey (BUXS). The effectiveness of our mid-infrared selection technique increases with the AGN luminosity. At high luminosities and at least up to z~1 our technique is very effective at identifying both Compton-thin and Compton-thick AGN.

We analyze a sample of 30,000 nearby obscured AGNs with SDSS and WISE. We use a “pair-matching” technique to subtract the host 4.6μm contribution, with the aid of SDSS data. By combining Seyferts with local SDSS quasars, we show that the [Oiii] and the intrinsic AGN 4.6μm luminosities correlate roughly linearly over 4 orders of magnitude, despite of large scatter. We also compare the partition functions of the total integrated 4.6μm and [Oiii] line luminosities from Seyferts and IR-bright LINERs, as function of a variety of host galaxy properties. The result suggests the optical and the IR selected AGNs represent the same galaxy population. We further study the environment of the AGNs, finding a link between the IR nuclear emission and the galaxy interaction.

We use spectra from the SDSS to study the signatures of nuclear activity over cosmic time, dividing the samples in redshift and mass bins, and using various diagnostic diagrams. A redshift evolution clearly emerges from the analysis of our diagrams.

The Baldwin, Phillips, and Terlevich emission-line ratio diagnostic ([OIII]/Hβ versus [NII]/Hα, hereafter BPT diagram) efficiently separates galaxies whose signal is dominated by star formation (BPT-SF) from those dominated by AGN activity (BPT-AGN). Yet the BPT diagram is limited to z<0.5, the redshift at which [NII]λ6584 leaves the optical spectral window. Using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), we construct a new diagnostic, or TBT diagram, that is based on rest-frame g−z color, [NeIII]λ3869, and [OII]λλ3726+3729 and can be used for galaxies out to z<1.4. The TBT diagram identifies 98.7% of the SDSS BPT-AGN as TBT-AGN and 97% of the SDSS BPT-SF as TBT-SF. Furthermore, it identifies 97% of the OPTX Chandra X-ray selected AGNs as TBT-AGN. This is in contrast to the BPT diagram, which misidentifies 20% of X-ray selected AGNs as BPT-SF.

We present the largest mid-infrared (MIR) atlas of active galactic nuclei at sub-arcsec spatial scales containing 253 objects with a median redshift of 0.016. It comprises all available ground-based high-angular resolution MIR observations performed to date with 8-meter class telescopes and includes 895 photometric measurements. All types of AGN are present in the atlas, which also includes 80 per cent of the 9-month BAT AGN sample. Therefore, this atlas and its subsamples are very well-suited for AGN unification studies. A first application of the atlas is the extension of the MIR–X-ray luminosity correlation for AGN.

We report about first results of the RoboPol project. RoboPol is a large-sample, high-cadence, polarimetric monitoring program of blazars in optical wavelengths, using a camera specifically constructed for this project, mounted at the University of Crete's Skinakas Observatory 1.3 m telescope. The analysis of RoboPol data is conducted in conjunction with Fermi LAT gamma-ray data, and multifrequency radio data from the OVRO (Caltech), F-GAMMA (MPIfR), and Torun (NCU) monitoring programs. Using carefully selected samples of gamma-ray bright and weak blazars we investigate a connection between their optical polarization behaviour and variability properties in gamma. We examine a relationship of gamma flares with polarization angle rotations relying on robust statistical criteria. We analyse also the optical polarization variability itself in order to establish some restrictions on physical models of blazars jets.

We present AGNfitter: a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm developed to fit the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of active galactic nuclei (AGN) with different physical models of AGN components. This code is well suited to determine in a robust way multiple parameters and their uncertainties, which quantify the physical processes responsible for the panchromatic nature of active galaxies and quasars. We describe the technicalities of the code and test its capabilities in the context of X-ray selected obscured AGN using multiwavelength data from the XMM-COSMOS survey.

We observed an area of sky located within the SDSS Stripe 82 field at 1.6 GHz with the European VLBI Network (EVN). There are fifteen mJy/sub-mJy radio sources within the primary beam of a typical 30-m class EVN radio telescope. Our aim was to obtain information on compact radio structures of all VLBI-detectable sources within this primary beam area. The source of particular interest is the recently identified radio quasar J222843.54+011032.2 (J2228+0110) at z = 5.95. The data correlation was performed at the EVN software correlator at JIVE (SFXC). Three targets (J2228+0110, J222851.45+011203.4, J222941.76+011428.5) were detected, all three with position offsets not exceeding the 3σ accuracy of the original low-resolution radio surveys. The detection rate of 20% is consistent with other wide-field VLBI experiments carried out recently (e.g. Middelberg et al. 2013). The project presented here demonstrates the ability of EVN in multiple-phase-centre experiments and paves the way for future large-scale EVN surveys of compact structures in extragalactic radio sources using the multiple-phase-centre VLBI technique.

The development of new AGNs selection techniques based on the massive multi-wavelength datasets that are becoming more and more frequent in astronomy is a crucial task to gather statistically significant samples and shed light on the physical nature of this diverse class of extragalactic sources. Novel characterizations of specific classes of sources from unexplored region of their spectrum and unusual combinations of the observational parameters can translate into new classification criteria. In this innovative data environment, the whole process ranging from the discovery of new patterns to the application of such patters to the selection of new AGNs, has to be tackled using a Knowledge Discovery (KD) workflow. A KD workflows is a combination of different KD methods that automatically extract the more interesting patters from data, reduce the complexity of the dataset and provide astronomers with the simplest possible amount of information to be interpreted. In this talk, I will describe an original KD workflow which, in one of its first applications, has led to the discovery of a previously unknown peculiar pattern followed by blazars in the mid-Infrared color space (the blazars WISE locus), and the development of a new classification criterion based on this pattern and useful to tackle different problems. The comprehensive KD workflow used to derive these results encompasses unsupervised methods for the exploration of the multi-dimensional observable spaces, and supervised method for the training and optimization of classifiers based on the patterns determined in the observable spaces. In particular, I will describe the new methods for the association of unidentified gamma-ray sources and the extraction of candidate blazars from mid-Infrared photometric catalog based on the WISE blazars locus.

Active galaxies are most luminous objects in the universe whose spectra are characterized by both permitted and forbidden emission line features. The spectra of Seyfert 1 galaxies and quasars contain strong and broad emission lines of wide ranging ionization potentials. The velocity widths of the lines range from a minimum of ≈ 500 km/s for narrow lines to a maximum of 20,000 km/sec for broad lines. The UV spectra of the active galaxies contain strong and broad emission lines such as Lyα, NV, SiIV, OIV], CIV, CIII] and MgII lines. The widths of the broad lines are attributed to the differential doppler shifts of the emission lines due to the bulk motions of individual clumpy gas clouds in the BLR region. We have anlysed UV spectra of Seyfert 1 galaxies and quasars from IUE satellite archival database to understand the nature of dependence of the emission line properties with the underlying UV continuum. We have undertaken line luminosity correlation studies for Lyα and CIV lines with their underlying UV continuum luminosity at 1125Å, 1425Å & 1625Å. The IUE archival spectra have been reduced for galactic reddening using the E(B-V) and NHI values published continuum luminosity has been observed at 1125Å, 1425Å & 1625Å. The Lyα line line has exhibited strongest linear correlation wavelengths while CIV line has shown at 1425Å and 2625Å wavelengths. These results are empirically consistent with the predictions of the general multi-component photo-ionization models suggesting that the central strong UV continuum has been reprocessed by the clumpy gas clouds of the broad emission region (BLR). A detailed account of the data reduction, UV flux measurement and the significance of line-luminosity correlations are discussed in this paper.

To study physical and morphological characteristics of distant quasars we carry out radio-optical investigation of 30 quasars from the Cambridge 7C catalogue second area (0.097 square radians). All these objects have angular sizes less than 1 arcsec on 102 MHz images. Average values of absolute magnitudes and spectral indices have been calculated for them (M = −26.51 ± 0.25, a = 0.66±0.25). It was shown that 60% of compact radio sources from the FIRST catalogue (1400 MHz) are candidates of distant quasars.

We present a catalog of millions of radio sources, created by consolidating large-area radio and optical surveys GB6 (6cm), FIRST (20cm), NVSS (20cm), WENSS (92cm), VLSS (4m), and SDSS DR9 (optical). The region where all surveys overlap covers 3269 deg2 in the North Galactic Cap, and contains >160,000 20-cm sources, with about 12,000 detected in all five radio surveys and over one-third detected optically. Combining parameters from the sky surveys allows easy and efficient classification by radio and optical morphology and radio spectral index. The catalog is available at http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/Amy.Kimball/radiocat.shtml.

Microlensing offers a unique way to constrain the physical extent of different emission regions in a lensed quasar, putting to test various accretion and continuum emission models. We perform a microlensing analysis using six Chandra observations (spanning six years) of the lensed quasar SDSS 0924+0219 (redshift zs=1.52), in which X-ray microlensing variability is detected with high confidence. The system exhibits pronounced microlensing variability in the X-rays compared to the optical, indicating a comparatively small extent of r1/2<3.8×104 cm (95% confidence) for the X-ray continuum emitting region, near the inner edge of the accretion disk.

The Chandra X-ray Observatory is the only X-ray facility with sub arcsec resolution, permitting detailed studies of radio galaxies and quasars. We review a short list of projects contributing to our goal of obtaining Chandra observations of all 3C extragalactic sources. Radio source samples, unlike most surveys at other wavelengths, should be completely unbiased with respect to viewing angle: the radio lobes are sign posts indicating the location of AGN (obscured or unobscured nuclei). The X-ray data allow us to estimate excess absorption towards nuclei, to find new examples of X-ray emission from jet knots and hotspots, and to isolate sources in clusters of galaxies together with signatures of feedback (e.g. cavities in the ICM). This work is supported by NASA grants GO1-12125A and GO2-13115X.

We present the results of our series of studies on correlation function and halo occupation distribution of AGNs utilizing data the ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in the redshift range of 0.07<z<0.36. In order to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, we take cross-correlation approach, where cross-correlation functions (CCF) between AGNs and much more numerous AGNs are analyzed. The calculated CCFs are analyzed using the Halo Occupation Distribution (HOD) model, where the CCFs are divided into the term contributed by the AGN-galaxy pairs that reside in one dark matter halo (DMH), (the 1-halo term) and those from two different DMHs (the 2-halo term). The 2-halo term is the indicator of the bias parameter, which is a function of the typical mass of the DMHs in which AGNs reside. The combination of the 1-halo and 2-halo terms gives, not only the typical DMH mass, but also how the AGNs are distributed among the DMHs as a function of mass separately for those at the center of the DMHs and satellites. The main results are as follows: (1) the range of typical mass of the DMHs in various sub-samples of AGNs log (MDMH/h−1MΘ) ~ 12.4–13.4, (2) we found a dependence of the AGN bias parameter on the X-ray luminosity of AGNs, while the optical luminosity dependence is not significant probably due to smaller dynamic range in luminosity for the optically-selected sample, and (3) the growth of the number of AGNs per DMH (N (MDMH)) with MDMH is shallow, or even may be flat, contrary to that of the galaxy population in general, which grows with MDMH proportionally, suggesting a suppression of AGN triggering in denser environment. In order to investigate the origin of the X-ray luminosity dependence, we are also investigating the dependence of clustering on the black hole mass and the Eddington ratio, we also present the results of this investigation.