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Extended Chandra Deep Field-South Survey Optical Identifications Catalog

Published by High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center | National Aeronautics and Space Administration | Metadata Last Checked: February 21, 2026 | Last Modified: 2026-02-17
This table contains the first results of the authors' optical spectroscopy program aimed to provide redshifts and identifications for the X-ray sources in the Extended Chandra Deep Field South (ECDFS). A total of 339 sources (listed herein) were targeted using the IMACS spectrograph at the Magellan telescopes and the VIMOS spectrograph at the VLT. The authors have measured redshifts for 186 X-ray sources, including archival data and a literature search. They find that the active galactic nucleus (AGN) host galaxies have on average redder rest-frame optical colors than nonactive galaxies, and that they live mostly in the "green valley." The dependence of the fraction of AGNs that are obscured on both luminosity and redshift is confirmed at high significance and the observed AGN spatial density is compared with the expectations from existing luminosity functions. These AGNs show a significant difference in the mid-IR to X-ray flux ratio for obscured and unobscured AGNs, which can be explained by the effects of dust self-absorption on the former. This difference is larger for lower luminosity sources, which is consistent with the dust opening angle depending on AGN luminosity. This table was created by the HEASARC in April 2009 based on the electronic version of Table 2 from the Treister et al. (2009) paper obtained from the ApJ web site, except for the source positions which were taken from Virani et al. (2006). The full table from the latter paper is also available in Browse (the ECDFSCXO table). This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

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