After the All-Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) discovered a significant brightening of the inner region of NGC 2617, we began a ∼ 70 day photometric and spectroscopic monitoring campaign from the X-ray through near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths. We report that NGC 2617 went through a dramatic outburst, during which its X-ray flux increased by over an order of magnitude followed by an increase of its optical/ultraviolet (UV) continuum flux by almost an order of magnitude. NGC 2617, classified as a Seyfert 1.8 galaxy in 2003, is now a Seyfert 1 due to the appearance of broad optical emission lines and a continuum blue bump. Such "changing look Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN)" are rare and provide us with important insights about AGN physics. Based on the Hβ line width and the radius-luminosity relation, we estimate the mass of central black hole to be (4 ± 1) × 10 7 M ⊙ . When we crosscorrelate the light curves, we find that the disk emission lags the X-rays, with the lag becoming longer as we move from the UV (2 − 3 days) to the NIR (6 − 9 days). Also, the NIR is more heavily temporally smoothed than the UV. This can largely be explained by a simple model of a thermally emitting thin disk around a black hole of the estimated mass that is illuminated by the observed, variable X-ray fluxes.

Hard X-ray (10 keV) observations of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can shed light on some of the most obscured episodes of accretion onto supermassive black holes. The 70-month Swift/BAT all-sky survey, which probes the 14-195 keV energy range, has currently detected 838 AGNs. We report here on the broadband X-ray (0.3-150 keV) characteristics of these AGNs, obtained by combining XMM-Newton, Swift/XRT, ASCA, Chandra, and Suzaku observations in the soft X-ray band ( 10  keV) with 70-month averaged Swift/BAT data. The nonblazar AGNs of our sample are almost equally divided into unobscured (N 10 cm H 22 2 < -) and obscured (N 10 cm H 22 2  -) AGNs, and their Swift/BAT continuum is systematically steeper than the 0.3-10 keV emission, which suggests that the presence of a high-energy cutoff is almost ubiquitous. We discuss the main X-ray spectral parameters obtained, such as the photon index, the reflection parameter, the energy of the cutoff, neutral and ionized absorbers, and the soft excess for both obscured and unobscured AGNs.

Heavily obscured accretion is believed to represent an important stage in the growth of supermassive black holes, and to play an important role in shaping the observed spectrum of the Cosmic X-ray Background (CXB). Hard X-ray (E>10 keV) selected samples are less affected by absorption than samples selected at lower energies, and are therefore one of the best ways to detect and identify Compton-thick (CT, log N H ≥ 24) Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). In this letter we present the first results of the largest broad-band (0.3-150 keV) X-ray spectral study of hard X-ray selected AGN to date, focusing on the properties of heavily obscured sources. Our sample includes the 834 AGN (728 non-blazar, average redshift z ≃ 0.055) reported in the 70-months catalog of the all-sky hard X-ray Swift/BAT survey. We find 55 CT AGN, which represent 7.6 +1.1 −2.1 % of our non-blazar sample. Of these, 26 are reported as candidate CT AGN for the first time. We correct for selection bias and derive the intrinsic column density distribution of AGN in the local Universe in two different luminosity ranges. We find a significant decrease in the fraction of obscured Compton-thin AGN for increasing luminosity, from 46 ± 3% (for log L 14−195 = 40 − 43.7) to 39 ± 3% (for log L 14−195 = 43.7 − 46). A similar trend is also found for CT AGN. The intrinsic fraction of CT AGN with log N H = 24 − 25 normalised to unity in the log N H = 20 − 25 range is 27 ± 4%, and is consistent with the observed value obtained for AGN located within 20 Mpc.

The large majority of the accreting supermassive black holes in the Universe are obscured by large columns of gas and dust [1][2][3] . The location and evolution of this obscuring material have been the subject of intense research in the past decades 4,5 , and are still highly debated. A decrease in the covering factor of the circumnuclear material with increasing accretion rates has been found by studies carried out across the electromagnetic spectrum 1,[6][7][8] . The origin of this trend has been suggested to be driven either by the increase in the inner radius of the obscuring material with incident luminosity due to the sublimation of dust 9 ; by the gravitational potential of the black hole 10 ; by radiative feedback [11][12][13][14] ; or by the interplay between outflows and inflows 15 . However, the lack of a large, unbiased and complete sample of accreting black holes, with reliable information on gas column density, luminosity and mass, has left the main physical mechanism regulating obscuration unclear. Using a systematic multi-wavelength survey of hard X-ray-selected black holes, here we show that radiation pressure on dusty gas is indeed the main physical mechanism regulating the distribution of the circumnuclear material. Our results imply that the bulk of the obscuring dust and gas in these objects is located within the sphere of influence of the black hole (i.e., a few to tens of parsecs), and that it can be swept away even at low radiative output rates. The main physical driver of the differences between obscured and unobscured accreting black holes is therefore their mass-normalized accretion rate.Our group has carried out a large multi-wavelength study of the 836 accreting supermassive black holes (i.e., active galactic nuclei or AGN) detected by the all-sky hard X-ray (14-195 keV) Swift Burst Alert Telescope survey 16, 17 (see §1 of the Methods). The energy range covered by Swift/BAT makes it ideal for studying the characteristics and evolu- Figure 1: Relation between the fraction of obscured AGN and the Eddington ratio. The fraction of obscured Compton-thin [10 22 ≤ (NH/cm −2 ) < 10 24 ] sources shown as a function of the Eddington ratio λ Edd (i.e. the AGN luminosity normalized by the maximum value for solar-metalicity, fully-ionized, dust-free gas in a spherical geometry) for our hard X-ray selected sample in the 10 −5.6 ≤ λ Edd < 1 range. The values are normalized to unity in the 10 20 ≤ (NH/cm −2 ) < 10 24 interval. The shaded area represents the 16th and 84th quantiles of a binomial distribution 20 . The vertical red dashed line represents the effective Eddington limit for a dusty gas 14 with NH = 10 22 cm −2 (see §2). The figure shows that the covering factor of the obscuring material with 10 22 ≤ (NH/cm −2 ) < 10 24 decreases sharply around the Eddington limit for dusty gas, highlighting the fact that radiation pressure strongly affects obscuration in AGN.tion of the absorbing material surrounding the AGN, being unaffected by obscuration up to column densities NH ≃ 10 24 cm −2 . More...

We present the catalog of sources detected in the first 22 months of data from the hard X-ray survey (14-195 keV) conducted with the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) coded mask imager on the Swift satellite. The catalog contains 461 sources detected above the 4.8σ level with BAT. High angular resolution X-ray data for every source from Swift-XRT or archival data have allowed associations to be made with known counterparts in other wavelength bands for over 97% of the detections, including the discovery of ∼30 galaxies previously unknown as active galactic nuclei and several new Galactic sources. A total of 266 of the sources are associated with Seyfert galaxies (median redshift z ∼ 0.03) or blazars, with the majority of the remaining sources associated with X-ray binaries in our Galaxy. This ongoing survey is the first uniform all-sky hard X-ray survey since HEAO-1 in 1977. Since the publication of the nine-month BAT survey we have increased the number of energy channels from four to eight and have substantially increased the number of sources with accurate average spectra. The BAT 22 month catalog is the product of the most sensitive all-sky survey in the hard X-ray band, with a detection sensitivity (4.8σ ) of 2.2 × 10 −11 erg cm −2 s −1 (1 mCrab) over most of the sky in the 14-195 keV band.

We present an observational constraint for the typical active galactic nucleus (AGN) phase lifetime. The argument is based on the time lag between an AGN central engine switching on and becoming visible in X-rays, and the time the AGN then requires to photoionize a large fraction of the host galaxy. Based on the typical light travel time across massive galaxies, and the observed fraction of X-ray selected AGN without AGN-photoionized narrow lines, we estimate that the AGN phase typically lasts ∼ 10 5 years. This lifetime is short compared to the total growth time of 10 7 − 10 9 years estimated from e.g. the Soltan argument and implies that black holes grow via many such short bursts and that AGN therefore "flicker" on and off. We discuss some consequences of this flickering behavior for AGN feedback and the analogy of X-ray binaries and AGN lifecycles.

We study the fraction of dual AGN in a sample of 167 nearby (z<0.05), moderate luminosity, ultra hard X-ray selected AGN from the all-sky Swif t BAT survey. Combining new Chandra and Gemini observations together with optical and X-ray observations, we find that the dual AGN frequency at scales <100 kpc is ∼10% (16/167). Of the 16 dual AGN, only 3 (19%) were detected using X-ray spectroscopy and were not detected using emission line diagnostics. Close dual AGN (<30 kpc) tend to be more common among the most X-ray luminous systems. In dual AGN, the X-ray luminosity of both AGN increases strongly with decreasing galaxy separation, suggesting that the merging event is key in powering both AGN. 50% of the AGN with a very close companion (<15 kpc), are dual AGN. We also find that dual AGN are more likely to occur in major mergers and tend to avoid absorption line galaxies with elliptical morphologies. Finally, we find SDSS Seyferts are much less likely than BAT AGN (0.25% vs. 7.8%) to be found in dual AGN at scales <30 kpc because of a smaller number of companions galaxies, fiber collision limits, a tendency for AGN at small separations to be detected only in X-rays, and a higher fraction of dual AGN companions with increasing AGN luminosity.

We present the first catalog and data release of the Swift-BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey. We analyze optical spectra of the majority of the detected AGNs (77%, 642/836)based on their 14-195 keV emission in the 70-month Swift-BATall-sky catalog. This includes redshift determination, absorption and emission-line measurements, and black hole mass and accretion rate estimates for the majority of obscured and unobscured AGNs (74%, 473/642), with 340 measured for the first time. With ∼90% of sources at < z 0.2, the survey represents a significant advance in the census of hard X-ray-selected AGNs in the local universe. In this first catalog paper, we describe the spectroscopic observations and data sets, and our initial spectral analysis. The FWHMs of the emission lines show broad agreement with the X-ray obscuration (∼94%), such that Sy 1-1.8 have < N 10 H 21.9 cm −2 , and Seyfert 2 have > N 10 H 21.9 cm −2 . Seyfert 1.9, however, show a range of column densities. Compared to narrow-line AGNs in the SDSS, the X-ray-selected AGNs have a larger fraction of dusty host galaxies ( a b > H H 5), suggesting that these types of AGN are missed in optical surveys. Using the [O III] λ5007/Hβ and [N II] λ6583/Hα emission-line diagnostic, about half of the sources are classified as Seyferts; ∼15% reside in dusty galaxies that lack an Hβ detection, but for which the upper limits on line emission imply either a Seyfert or LINER,~15% are in galaxies with weak or no emission lines despite high-quality spectra, and a few percent each are LINERS, composite galaxies, H II regions, or in known beamed AGNs.