DECOMPOSING STAR FORMATION AND ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS WITHSPITZERMID-INFRARED SPECTRA: LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS AND CO-EVOLUTION

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Abstract
We present Spitzer 7-38 μm spectra for a 24 μm flux-limited sample of galaxies at z ~ 0.7 in the COSMOS field. The detailed high-quality spectra allow us to cleanly separate star formation (SF) and active galactic nucleus (AGN) in individual galaxies. We first decompose mid-infrared luminosity functions (LFs). We find that the SF 8 μm and 15 μm LFs are well described by Schechter functions. AGNs dominate the space density at high luminosities, which leads to the shallow bright-end slope of the overall mid-infrared LFs. The total infrared (8-1000 μm) LF from 70 μm selected galaxies shows a shallower bright-end slope than the bolometrically corrected SF 15 μm LF, owing to the intrinsic dispersion in the mid-to-far-infrared spectral energy distributions. We then study the contemporary growth of galaxies and their supermassive black holes (BHs). Seven of the thirty-one luminous infrared galaxies with Spitzer spectra host luminous AGNs, implying an AGN duty cycle of 23% ± 9%. The time-averaged ratio of BH accretion rate and SF rate matches the local M BH – M bulge relation and the M BH – M host relation at z ~ 1. These results favor co-evolution scenarios in which BH growth and intense SF happen in the same event but the former spans a shorter lifetime than the latter. Finally, we compare our mid-infrared spectroscopic selection with other AGN identification methods and discuss candidate Compton-thick AGNs in the sample. While only half of the mid-infrared spectroscopically selected AGNs are detected in X-ray, ~90% of them can be identified with their near-infrared spectral indices.
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