Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 459, Issue 1, Pages 257-276Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw667
Keywords
galaxies: active; galaxies: general; quasars: general; infrared: galaxies
Categories
Funding
- BMVIT (Austria)
- ESA-PRODEX (Belgium)
- CEA/CNES (France)
- DLR (Germany)
- ASI/INAF (Italy)
- CICYT/MCYT (Spain)
- CSA (Canada)
- NAOC (China)
- CEA (France)
- CNES (France)
- CNRS (France)
- ASI (Italy)
- MCINN (Spain)
- SNSB (Sweden)
- STFC (UK)
- UKSA (UK)
- NASA (USA)
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- National Science Foundation
- US Department of Energy Office of Science
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- University of Arizona
- Brazilian Participation Group
- Brookhaven National Laboratory
- Carnegie Mellon University
- University of Florida
- French Participation Group
- German Participation Group
- Harvard University
- Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias
- Michigan State/Notre Dame/JINA Participation Group
- Johns Hopkins University
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics
- Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics
- New Mexico State University
- New York University
- Ohio State University
- Pennsylvania State University
- University of Portsmouth
- Princeton University
- Spanish Participation Group
- University of Tokyo
- University of Utah
- Vanderbilt University
- University of Virginia
- University of Washington
- Yale University
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/P000827/1, ST/M001083/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- STFC [ST/P000827/1, ST/N000811/1, ST/M001083/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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We present an intrinsic AGN spectral energy distribution (SED) extending from the optical to the submm, derived with a sample of unobscured, optically luminous (nu L-nu,L-5100 > 10(43.5) erg s(-1)) QSOs at z < 0.18 from the Palomar Green survey. The intrinsic AGN SED was computed by removing the contribution from stars using the 11.3 mu m polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) feature in the QSOs' mid-IR spectra; the 1 sigma uncertainty on the SED ranges between 12 and 45 per cent as a function of wavelength and is a combination of PAH flux measurement errors and the uncertainties related to the conversion between PAH luminosity and star-forming luminosity. Longwards of 20 mu m, the shape of the intrinsic AGN SED is independent of the AGN power indicating that our template should be applicable to all systems hosting luminous AGN (nu L-nu,L-5100 or LX(2-10 keV) greater than or similar to 10(43.5) erg s(-1)). We note that for our sample of luminous QSOs, the average AGN emission is at least as high as, and mostly higher than, the total stellar powered emission at all wavelengths from the optical to the submm. This implies that in many galaxies hosting powerful AGN, there is no 'safe' broad-band photometric observation (at lambda < 1000 mu m) which can be used in calculating star formation rates without subtracting the AGN contribution. Roughly, the AGN contribution may be ignored only if the intrinsic AGN luminosity at 5100 AA is at least a factor of 4 smaller than the total infrared luminosity (L-IR, 8-1000 mu m) of the galaxy. Finally, we examine the implication of our work in statistical studies of star formation in AGN host galaxies.
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