Search

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) dust emission has been proposed as an effective extinction-independent star formation rate (SFR) indicator in the mid-infrared (MIR), but this may depend on conditions in the interstellar medium. The coverage of the AKARI/Infrared Camera (IRC) allows us to study the effects of metallicity, starburst intensity, and active galactic nuclei on PAH emission in galaxies with $f_{\nu}(L18W)\lesssim 19$ AB mag. Observations include follow-up, rest-frame optical spectra of 443 galaxies within the AKARI North Ecliptic Pole survey that have IRC detections from 7-24 $\mu$m. We use optical emission line diagnostics to infer SFR based on H$\alpha$ and [O II]$\lambda\lambda 3726,3729$ emission line luminosities. The PAH 6.2 $\mu$m and PAH 7.7 $\mu$m luminosities ($L(PAH\ 6.2\ \mu m)$ and $L(PAH\ 7.7\ \mu m)$, respectively) derived using multi-wavelength model fits are consistent with those derived from slitless spectroscopy within 0.2 dex. $L(PAH\ 6.2\ \mu m)$ and $L(PAH\ 7.7\ \mu m)$ correlate linearly with the 24 $\mu$m-dust corrected H$\alpha$ luminosity only for normal, star-forming ``main-sequence" galaxies. Assuming multi-linear correlations, we quantify the additional dependencies on metallicity and starburst intensity, which we use to correct our PAH SFR calibrations at $0

Since their first discovery in the late 1960s, Gamma-ray bursts have attracted an exponentially growing interest from the international community due to their central role in the most highly debated open questions of the modern research of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics. These range from the intimate nuclear composition of high density material within the core of ultra-dense neuron stars, to stellar evolution via the collapse of massive stars, the production and propagation of gravitational waves, as well as the exploration of the early Universe by unveiling first stars and galaxies (assessing also their evolution and cosmic re-ionization). GRBs have stimulated in the past $\sim$50 years the development of cutting-edge technological instruments for observations of high energy celestial sources from space, leading to the launch and successful operations of many different scientific missions (several of them still in data taking mode nowadays). In this review, we provide a brief description of the GRB-dedicated missions from space being designed and developed for the future. The list of these projects, not meant to be exhaustive, shall serve as a reference to interested readers to understand what is likely to come next to lead the further development of GRB research and associated phenomenology., Comment: Accepted for publication on Universe. Invited review, contribution to the Universe Special Issue "Recent Advances in Gamma Ray Astrophysics and Future Perspectives", P. Romano eds. (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/universe/special_issues/7299902Z97)

We report optical spectroscopic observations of four blue-excess dust-obscured galaxies (BluDOGs) identified by Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam. BluDOGs are a sub-class of dust-obscured galaxies (DOGs, defined with the extremely red color $(i-[22])_{\rm AB} \geq 7.0$; Toba et al. 2015), showing a significant flux excess in the optical $g$- and $r$-bands over the power-law fits to the fluxes at the longer wavelengths. Noboriguchi et al. (2019) has suggested that BluDOGs may correspond to the blowing-out phase involved in a gas-rich major merger scenario. However the detailed properties of BluDOGs are not understood because of the lack of spectroscopic information. In this work, we carry out deep optical spectroscopic observations of four BluDOGs using Subaru/FOCAS and VLT/FORS2. The obtained spectra show broad emission lines with extremely large equivalent widths, and a blue wing in the CIV line profile. The redshifts are between 2.2 and 3.3. The averaged rest-frame equivalent widths of the CIV lines are $160\pm33$ $\mathrm{\mathring{A}}$, $\sim$7 times higher than the average of a typical type-1 quasar. The FWHMs of their velocity profiles are between 1990 and 4470 ${\rm km\ s^{-1}}$, and their asymmetric parameters are 0.05 and 0.25. Such strong CIV lines significantly affect the broad-band magnitudes, which is partly the origin of the blue excess seen in the spectral energy distribution of BluDOGs. Their estimated supermassive black hole masses are $1.1\times10^8 < M_{\rm BH}/M_\odot < 5.5 \times 10^8$. The inferred Eddington ratios of the BluDOGs are higher than 1 ($1.1< \lambda_{\rm Edd} < 3.8$), suggesting that the BluDOGs are in a rapidly evolving phase of supermassive black holes., Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Massive colliding-wind binaries that host a Wolf-Rayet (WR) star present a potentially important source of dust and chemical enrichment in the interstellar medium (ISM). However, the chemical composition and survival of dust formed from such systems is not well understood. The carbon-rich WR (WC) binary WR~140 presents an ideal astrophysical laboratory for investigating these questions given its well-defined orbital period and predictable dust-formation episodes every 7.93 years around periastron passage. We present observations from our Early Release Science program (ERS1349) with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) Medium-Resolution Spectrometer (MRS) and Imager that reveal the spectral and spatial signatures of nested circumstellar dust shells around WR~140. MIRI MRS spectroscopy of the second dust shell and Imager detections of over 17 shells formed throughout the past $\gtrsim130$ years confirm the survival of carbonaceous dust grains from WR~140 that are likely carriers of "unidentified infrared" (UIR)-band features at 6.4 and 7.7 $\mu$m. The observations indicate that dust-forming WC binaries can enrich the ISM with organic compounds and carbonaceous dust., Comment: Published in Nature Astronomy on Oct 12, 2022; 21 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables

We study the galaxy merger fraction and its dependence on star formation mode in the5.4 square degrees of the North Ecliptic Pole-Wide field. We select 6352 galaxies withAKARI 9{\mu}m detections, and identify mergers among them using the Gini coefficientand M20derived from the Subaru/HSC optical images. We obtain the total infraredluminosity and star formation rate of galaxies using the spectral energy distributiontemplates based on one band, AKARI 9{\mu}m. We classify galaxies into three differentstar formation modes (i.e. starbursts, main sequence, and quiescent galaxies) andcalculate the merger fractions for each. We find that the merger fractions of galaxiesincrease with redshift atz<0.6. The merger fractions of starbursts are higher thanthose of main sequence and quiescent galaxies in all redshift bins. We also examinethe merger fractions of far-infrared detected galaxies which have at least one detectionfromHerschel/SPIRE. We find thatHerscheldetected galaxies have higher mergerfraction compared to non-Herscheldetected galaxies, and bothHerscheldetected andnon-Herscheldetected galaxies show clearly different merger fractions depending onthe star formation modes., Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, Accepted for publication by MNRAS

We use the SPace Infrared telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA) project as a template to demonstrate how deep spectrophotometric surveys covering large cosmological volumes over extended fields (1-15 square degrees) with a mid-IR imaging spectrometer (17-36 micron) in conjunction with deep 70 micron photometry with a far-IR camera, at wavelengths which are not affected by dust extinction can answer the most crucial questions in current galaxy evolution studies. A SPICA-like mission will be able for the first time to provide an unobscured three dimensional (3-D, i.e. x, y and redshift z) view of galaxy evolution back to an age of the Universe of less than ~2 Gyrs, in the mid-IR rest-frame. This survey strategy will produce a full census of the Star formation Rate (SFR) in the Universe, using Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) bands and fine-structure ionic lines, reaching the characteristic knee of the galaxy luminosity function, where the bulk of the population is distributed, at any redshift up to z ~3.5. Deep follow-up pointed spectroscopic observations with grating spectrometers { onboard the satellite}, across the full IR spectral range (17-210 micron), would simultaneously measure Black Hole Accretion Rate (BHAR), from high-ionization fine-structure lines, and SFR, from PAH and low- to mid-ionization lines in thousands of galaxies from solar to low metallicities, down to the knee of their luminosity functions. The analysis of the resulting atlas of IR spectra will reveal the physical processes at play in evolving galaxies across cosmic time, especially its heavily dust-embedded phase during the activity peak at the cosmic noon (z ~1-3), through IR emission lines and features that are insensitive to the dust obscuration., Comment: Paper accepted for publication on PASA on 5th March 2021, as part of the SPICA Special Issue

We revisit the dependence of covering factor (CF) of dust torus on physical properties of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) by taking into account an AGN polar dust emission. The CF is converted from a ratio of infrared (IR) luminosity contributed from AGN dust torus ($L_{\rm IR}^{\rm torus}$) and AGN bolometric luminosity ($L_{\rm bol}$), by assuming a non-linear relation between luminosity ratio and intrinsic CF. We select 37,181 type 1 quasars at $z < 0.7$ from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 16 quasar catalog. Their $L_{\rm bol}$, black hole mass ($M_{\rm BH}$), and Eddington ratio ($\lambda_{\rm Edd}$) are derived by spectral fitting with QSFit. We conduct spectral energy distribution decomposition by using X-CIGALE with clumpy torus and polar dust model to estimate $L_{\rm IR}^{\rm torus}$ without being affected by the contribution of stellar and AGN polar dust to IR emission. For 5720 quasars whose physical quantities are securely determined, we perform a correlation analysis on CF and (i) $L_{\rm bol}$, (ii) $M_{\rm BH}$, and (iii) $\lambda_{\rm Edd}$. As a result, anti-correlations for CF-$L_{\rm bol}$, CF-$M_{\rm BH}$, and CF-$\lambda_{\rm Edd}$ are confirmed. We find that incorporating the AGN polar dust emission makes those anti-correlations stronger which are compared to those without considering it. This indicates that polar dust wind provably driven by AGN radiative pressure is one of the key components to regulate obscuring material of AGNs., Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures, and 4 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ. Physical properties (e.g., BH mass, Eddington ratio, IR luminosity) of 37,181 quasars at z < 0.7 selected from the SDSS DR16 will be available as a Machine-readable table

To understand the cosmic accretion history of supermassive black holes, separating the radiation from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and star-forming galaxies (SFGs) is critical. However, a reliable solution on photometrically recognising AGNs still remains unsolved. In this work, we present a novel AGN recognition method based on Deep Neural Network (Neural Net; NN). The main goals of this work are (i) to test if the AGN recognition problem in the North Ecliptic Pole Wide (NEPW) field could be solved by NN; (ii) to shows that NN exhibits an improvement in the performance compared with the traditional, standard spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting method in our testing samples; and (iii) to publicly release a reliable AGN/SFG catalogue to the astronomical community using the best available NEPW data, and propose a better method that helps future researchers plan an advanced NEPW database. Finally, according to our experimental result, the NN recognition accuracy is around 80.29% - 85.15%, with AGN completeness around 85.42% - 88.53% and SFG completeness around 81.17% - 85.09%., Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures

The $AKARI$ space infrared telescope has performed near- to mid-infrared (MIR) observations on the North Ecliptic Pole Wide (NEPW) field (5.4 deg$^2$) for about one year. $AKARI$ took advantage of its continuous nine photometric bands, compared with NASA's $Spitzer$ and WISE space telescopes, which had only four filters with a wide gap in the MIR. The $AKARI$ NEPW field lacked deep and homogeneous optical data, limiting the use of nearly half of the IR sources for extra-galactic studies owing to the absence of photometric redshifts (photo-zs). To remedy this, we have recently obtained deep optical imaging over the NEPW field with 5 bands ($g$, $r$, $i$, $z$, and $Y$) of the Hyper Suprime-Camera (HSC) on the Subaru 8m telescope. We optically identify AKARI-IR sources along with supplementary $Spitzer$ and WISE data as well as pre-existing optical data. In this work, we derive new photo-zs using a $\chi^2$ template-fitting method code ($Le$ $Phare$) and reliable photometry from 26 selected filters including HSC, $AKARI$, CFHT, Maidanak, KPNO, $Spitzer$ and WISE data. We take 2026 spectroscopic redshifts (spec-z) from all available spectroscopic surveys over the NEPW to calibrate and assess the accuracy of the photo-zs. At z < 1.5, we achieve a weighted photo-z dispersion of $\sigma_{\Delta{z/(1+z)}}$ = 0.053 with $\eta$ = 11.3% catastrophic errors., Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS. For summary video, please see http://youtu.be/hjNJRCoBIgg

The north ecliptic pole (NEP) field is a natural deep field location for many satellite observations. It has been targeted manytimes since it was surveyed by the AKARI space telescope with its unique wavelength coverage from the near- to mid-infrared(mid-IR). Many follow-up observations have been carried out and made this field one of the most frequently observed areas witha variety of facilities, accumulating abundant panchromatic data from X-ray to radio wavelength range. Recently, a deep opticalsurvey with the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) at the Subaru telescope covered the NEP-Wide (NEPW) field, which enabled us toidentify faint sources in the near- and mid-IR bands, and to improve the photometric redshift (photo-z) estimation. In this work,we present newly identified AKARI sources by the HSC survey, along with multi-band photometry for 91,861 AKARI sourcesobserved over the NEPW field. We release a new band-merged catalogue combining various photometric data from GALEXUV to the submillimetre (sub-mm) bands (e.g., Herschel/SPIRE, JCMT/SCUBA-2). About 20,000 AKARI sources are newlymatched to the HSC data, most of which seem to be faint galaxies in the near- to mid-infrared AKARI bands. This cataloguemotivates a variety of current research, and will be increasingly useful as recently launched (eROSITA/ART-XC) and futurespace missions (such as JWST, Euclid, and SPHEREx) plan to take deep observations in the NEP field., Comment: 17 pages, 12 Figures, accepted in MNRAS, (in press)

In order to understand the interaction between the central black hole and the whole galaxy or their co-evolution history along with cosmic time, a complete census of active galactic nuclei (AGN) is crucial. However, AGNs are often missed in optical, UV and soft X-ray observations since they could be obscured by gas and dust. A mid-infrared (mid-IR) survey supported by multiwavelength data is one of the best ways to find obscured AGN activities because it suffers less from extinction. Previous large IR photometric surveys, e.g., $WISE$ and $Spitzer$, have gaps between the mid-IR filters. Therefore, star forming galaxy (SFG)-AGN diagnostics in the mid-IR were limited. The $AKARI$ satellite has a unique continuous 9-band filter coverage in the near to mid-IR wavelengths. In this work, we take advantage of the state-of-the-art spectral energy distribution (SED) modelling software, CIGALE, to find AGNs in mid-IR. We found 126 AGNs in the NEP-Wide field with this method. We also investigate the energy released from the AGN as a fraction of the total IR luminosity of a galaxy. We found that the AGN contribution is larger at higher redshifts for a given IR luminosity. With the upcoming deep IR surveys, e.g., $JWST$, we expect to find more AGNs with our method., Comment: 14 pages, 18 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. For associated video, please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B01jL0Bol9Q&feature=emb_logo

We present the physical properties of AKARI sources without optical counterparts in optical images from the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) on the Subaru telescope. Using the AKARI infrared (IR) source catalog and HSC optical catalog, we select 583 objects that do not have HSC counterparts in the AKARI North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) wide survey field ($\sim 5$ deg$^{2}$). Because the HSC limiting magnitude is deep ($g_{\rm AB}$ $\sim 28.6$), these are good candidates for extremely red star-forming galaxies (SFGs) and/or active galactic nuclei (AGNs), possibly at high redshifts. We compile multi-wavelength data out to 500 $\mu$m and use it for Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) fitting with CIGALE to investigate the physical properties of AKARI galaxies without optical counterparts. We also compare their physical quantities with AKARI mid-IR selected galaxies with HSC counterparts. The estimated redshifts of AKARI objects without HSC counterparts range up to $z\sim 4$, significantly higher than that of AKARI objects with HSC counterparts. We find that: (i) 3.6 $-$ 4.5 $\mu$m color, (ii) AGN luminosity, (iii) stellar mass, (iv) star formation rate, and (v) $V$-band dust attenuation in the interstellar medium of AKARI objects without HSC counterparts are systematically larger than those of AKARI objects with counterparts. These results suggest that our sample includes luminous, heavily dust-obscured SFGs/AGNs at $z\sim 1-4$ that are missed by previous optical surveys, providing very interesting targets for the coming James Webb Space Telescope era., Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, and 2 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ

We report on the torus constraints of the Compton-thick AGN with double-peaked optical narrow line region (NLR) emission lines, ANEPD-CXO245, at z=0.449 in the AKARI NEP Deep Field. The unique infrared data on this field, including those from the nine-band photometry over 2-24 $\mu$m with the AKARI Infrared Camera (IRC), and the X-ray spectrum from Chandra allow us to constrain torus parameters such as the torus optical depth, X-ray absorbing column, torus angular width ($\sigma$) and viewing angle ($i$). We analyze the X-ray spectrum as well as the UV-optical-infrared spectral energy distribution (UOI-SED) with clumpy torus models in X-ray (XCLUMPY; Tanimoto et al. 2019) and infrared (CLUMPY; Nenkova et al. 2008) respectively. From our current data, the constraints on $\sigma$--$i$ from both X-rays and UOI show that the line of sight crosses the torus as expected for a type 2 AGN. We obtain a small X-ray scattering fraction (<0.1%), which suggests narrow torus openings, giving preference to the bi-polar outflow picture of the double-peaked profile. Comparing the optical depth of the torus from the UOI-SED and the absorbing column density $N_{\rm H}$ from the X-ray spectrum, we find that the gas-to-dust ratio is $\gtrsim 4$ times larger than the Galactic value., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures. Accepted to Astrophysical Journal (Letters)

Interplanetary dust (IPD) is thought to be recently supplied from asteroids and comets. Grain properties of the IPD can give us the information about the environment in the proto-solar system, and can be traced from the shapes of silicate features around 10 $\mu$m seen in the zodiacal emission spectra. We analyzed mid-IR slit-spectroscopic data of the zodiacal emission in various sky directions obtained with the Infrared Camera on board AKARI satellite. After we subtracted the contamination due to instrumental artifacts, we have successfully obtained high S/N spectra and have determined detailed shapes of excess emission features in the 9 -- 12 $\mu$m range in all the sky directions. According to a comparison between the feature shapes averaged over all directions and the absorption coefficients of candidate minerals, the IPD was found to typically include small silicate crystals, especially enstatite grains. We also found the variations in the feature shapes and the related grain properties among the different sky directions. From investigations of the correlation between feature shapes and the brightness contributions from dust bands, the IPD in dust bands seems to have the size frequency distribution biased toward large grains and show the indication of hydrated minerals. The spectra at higher ecliptic latitude showed a stronger excess, which indicates an increase in the fraction of small grains included in the line of sight at higher ecliptic latitudes. If we focus on the dependence of detailed feature shapes on ecliptic latitudes, the IPD at higher latitudes was found to have a lower olivine/pyroxene ratio for small amorphous grains. The variation of the mineral composition of the IPD in different sky directions may imply different properties of the IPD from different types of parent bodies, because the spatial distribution of the IPD depends on the type of the parent body., Comment: 49 pages, 21 figures, 3 tables

Recent simulations predict that the presence of stellar bulge suppress the efficiency of star formation in early-type galaxies, and this `morphological quenching' scenario is supported by many observations. In this study, we discuss the net effect of galaxy morphologies on the star formation efficiency (SFE) during the phase of galaxy transition, on the basis of our CO($J=1-0$) observations of 28 local `green-valley' galaxies with the Nobeyama 45m Radio Telescope. We observed 13 `disk-dominated' and 15 `bulge-dominated' green-valley galaxies at fixed stellar mass ($M_*$) and star formation rate (SFR), supplemented by 1 disk- and 6 bulge-dominated galaxies satisfying the same criteria from the xCOLD~GASS survey. By using a total of 35 green-valley galaxies, we reveal that the distributions of molecular gas mass, molecular gas fraction, and SFE of green-valley galaxies do not change with their morphologies, suggesting little impact of galaxy morphologies on their SFE, and interestingly this result is also valid for normal star-forming galaxies on the SF main-sequence selected from the xCOLD~GASS galaxies. On the other hand, we find that $\sim$20 % of bulge-dominated green-valley galaxies do not show significant CO emission line, showing high SFEs for their M$_*$ and SFR. These molecular gas deficient sources identified only in the bulge-dominated green-valley galaxies may represent an important population during the quenching phase under the influence of stellar bulge, but our results suggest that the presence of stellar bulge does not decrease the efficiency of on-going star formation, in contrast to the prediction of the morphological quenching scenario., Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

The aim of this work is to create a new catalog of reliable AGN candidates selected from the AKARI NEP-Deep field. Selection of the AGN candidates was done by applying a fuzzy SVM algorithm, which allows to incorporate measurement uncertainties into the classification process. The training dataset was based on the spectroscopic data available for selected objects in the NEP-Deep and NEP-Wide fields. The generalization sample was based on the AKARI NEP-Deep field data including objects without optical counterparts and making use of the infrared information only. A high quality catalog of previously unclassified 275 AGN candidates was prepared., Comment: 17 pages, accepted to PASJ AKARI special issue

Evolutionary properties of infrared (IR) luminous galaxies are important keys to understand dust-obscured star formation history and galaxy evolution. Based on the near- to mid-IR imaging with 9 continuous filters of AKARI space telescope, we present the characteristics of dusty star-forming (SF) galalxies showing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) features observed by the North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) wide field survey of AKARI and Herschel. All the sample galaxies from the AKARI/NEP-Wide data are selected based both on the Herschel/SPIRE 250 {\mu}m detection and optical spectroscopic redshift data. The physical modelling of spectral energy distribution (SED) using all available data points from u to sub-mm 500 {\mu}m band, including WISE and PACS data where available, takes unique advantages of the continuous near to mid-IR coverage, reliable constraint on far-IR peak, spectroscopically determined accurate redshifts, as well as energy balance principle by MAGPHYS. This enables us to derive physically meaningful and accurate total infrared luminosity and 8 {\mu}m (or PAH) luminosity consistently. Our sample galaxies are in the redshift range z <1, and majority of them appear to be normal SF/spiral populations showing PAH features near the 8 {\mu}m. These SF galaxies showing PAHs in the mid-IR include various types from quiescent to starbursts. Some of our sample show shortage of 8 {\mu}m luminosity compared to the total IR luminosity and this PAH deficit gets severe in more luminous IR galaxies, suggesting PAH molecules in these galaxies destroyed by strong radiation field from SF region or a large amount of cold dust in ISM. The specific SFR of our sample shows mass dependent time evolution which is consistent with downsizing evolutionary pattern., Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, Accepted to AKARI special issue of the PASJ

Revealing what fraction of galaxies harbor AGN is central in understanding black hole accretion history of the Universe. However, optical and soft X-ray surveys miss the most highly obscured AGNs. Infrared (IR), instead, is more robust against absorption. Previous IR photometric surveys, however, only had 4 or 5 filters in mid-IR. Our AKARI North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) wide field sample has 18 filters in mid-IR (9 from AKARI, 4 from WISE, and 5 from Spitzer), for the first time, allowing a sophisticated mid-IR SED fitting diagnosis for a statistical number of sources (89178 over 5.4 deg$^2$). By using a SED fitting technique, we investigate the evolution of AGN fraction as a function of redshift and IR (8-1000 $\mu$m) luminosity in an extinction-free way. We found that the AGN fraction (F$_{\rm AGN}$) shows no sign of strong redshift evolution. Instead, F$_{\rm AGN}$ increases with increasing IR luminosity in all redshifts bins ($0

Much of the star formation is obscured by dust. For the complete understanding of the cosmic star formation history (CSFH), infrared (IR) census is indispensable. AKARI carried out deep mid-infrared observations using its continuous 9-band filters in the North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) field (5.4 deg$^2$). This took significant amount of satellite's lifetime, $\sim$10\% of the entire pointed observations. By combining archival Spitzer (5 bands) and WISE (4 bands) mid-IR photometry, we have, in total, 18 band mid-IR photometry, which is the most comprehensive photometric coverage in mid-IR for thousands of galaxies. However previously, we only had shallow optical imaging ($\sim$25.9ABmag) in a small area of 1.0 deg$^2$. As a result, there remained thousands of AKARI's infrared sources undetected in optical. Using the new Hyper Suprime-Cam on Subaru telescope, we obtained deep enough optical images of the entire AKARI NEP field in 5 broad bands ($g\sim$27.5mag). These provided photometric redshift, and thereby IR luminosity for the previously undetected faint AKARI IR sources. Combined with the accurate mid-IR luminosity measurement, we constructed mid-IR LFs, and thereby performed a census of dust-obscured CSFH in the entire AKARI NEP field. We have measured restframe 8$\mu$m, 12$\mu$m luminosity functions (LFs), and estimated total infrared LFs at 0.35$<$z$<$2.2. Our results are consistent with our previous work, but with much reduced statistical errors thanks to the large area coverage of the new data. We have possibly witnessed the turnover of CSFH at $z\sim$2., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in PASK AKARI special issue. A summary talk is at https://youtu.be/ZIHEAYj0bqQ

A detailed analysis of Herschel-PACS observations at the North Ecliptic Pole is presented. High quality maps, covering an area of 0.44 square degrees, are produced and then used to derive potential candidate source lists. A rigorous quality control pipeline has been used to create final legacy catalogues in the PACS Green 100 micron and Red 160 micron bands, containing 1384 and 630 sources respectively. These catalogues reach to more than twice the depth of the current archival Herschel/PACS Point Source Catalogue, detecting 400 and 270 more sources in the short and long wavelength bands respectively. Galaxy source counts are constructed that extend down to flux densities of 6mJy and 19mJy (50% completeness) in the Green 100 micron and Red 160 micron bands respectively. These source counts are consistent with previously published PACS number counts in other fields across the sky. The source counts are then compared with a galaxy evolution model identifying a population of luminous infrared galaxies as responsible for the bulk of the galaxy evolution over the flux range (5-100mJy) spanned by the observed counts, contributing approximate fractions of 50% and 60% to the cosmic infrared background (CIRB) at 100 microns and 160 microns respectively., Comment: Accepted for publication in PASJ, 11 pages, 8 figures

Understanding infrared (IR) luminosity is fundamental to understanding the cosmic star formation history and AGN evolution. Japanese infrared satellite, AKARI, provided unique data sets to probe this both at low and high redshift; the AKARI all sky survey in 6 bands (9-160 $\mu$m), and the AKARI NEP survey in 9 bands (2-24$\mu$m). The AKARI performed all sky survey in 6 IR bands (9, 18, 65, 90, 140, and 160 $\mu$m) with 3-10 times better sensitivity than IRAS, covering the crucial far-IR wavelengths across the peak of the dust emission. Combined with a better spatial resolution, we measure the total infrared luminosity ($L_{TIR}$) of individual galaxies, and thus, the total infrared luminosity density of the local Universe much more precisely than previous work. In the AKARI NEP wide field, AKARI has obtained deep images in the mid-infrared (IR), covering 5.4 deg$^2$. However, our previous work was limited to the central area of 0.25 deg$^2$ due to the lack of deep optical coverage. To rectify the situation, we used the newly advent Subaru telescope's Hyper Suprime-Cam to obtain deep optical images over the entire 5.4 deg$^2$ of the AKARI NEP wide field. With this deep and wide optical data, we, for the first time, can use the entire AKARI NEP wide data to construct restframe 8$\mu$m, 12$\mu$m, and total infrared (TIR) luminosity functions (LFs) at 0.15$

In this research, we provide a new, efficient method to select infrared (IR) active galatic nucleus (AGN). In the past, AGN selection in IR had been established by many studies using color-color diagrams. However, those methods have a problem in common that the number of bands is limited. The AKARI North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) survey was carried out by the AKARI Infrared Camera (IRC), which has 9 filters in mid-IR with a continuous wavelength coverage from 2 to 24$\mu$m$^{-1}$. Based on the intrinsic different mid-IR features of AGN and star-forming galaxies (SFGs), we performed SED fitting to separate these two populations by the best-fitting model. In the X-ray AGN sample, our method by SED fitting selects 50$\%$ AGNs, while the previous method by colour criteria recovers only 30$\%$ of them, which is a significant improvement. Furthermore, in the whole NEP deep sample, SED fitting selects two times more AGNs than the color selection. This may imply that the black hole accretion history could be more stronger than people expected before., Comment: Proceedings of the "The Cosmic Wheel and the Legacy of the AKARI archive: from galaxies and stars to planets and life", held from October 17 - 20, 2017, Tokyo, Japan

The AKARI North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) survey consists of two survey projects: NEP-Deep (0.5 sq.deg) and NEP-Wide (5.4 sq.deg), providing with tens of thousands of galaxies. A continuous filter coverage in the mid-infrared wavelengths (7, 9, 11, 15, 18 and 24 $\mu$m) is unique to diagnose the contributions from dusty star-formation activity and AGNs. Here we present current status focused on the newly obtained optical images and near-future prospects with a new X-ray telescope. Hyper Suprime-Cam on Subaru telescope is a gigantic optical camera with huge Field of View (FoV). Thanks to the wide FoV, we successfully obtained deep optical images at g, r, i, z and Y-bands covering most of the NEP-Wide field. Using the deep optical images, we identified over 5000 optical counterparts of the mid-IR sources, presumably deeply obscured galaxies in NEP-Wide field. We also investigated properties of these infrared sources with SED-fitting. eROSITA, to be launched early 2018, is a new all-sky X-ray survey telescope, and expected to conduct ultra deep 2-10 keV imaging toward NEP. We expect unprecedentedly numerous Compton-thick AGN candidates when combined with the multi-wavelength data in NEP region., Comment: 4pages, 5figures, Proceedings of the "The Cosmic Wheel and the Legacy of the AKARI archive: from galaxies and stars to planets and life", held from October 17 - 20, 2017, Tokyo, Japan

Mid-infrared properties are reported of the west hot spot of the radio galaxy Pictor A with the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The mid-infrared counterpart to the hot spot, WISE J051926.26-454554.1, is listed in the AllWISE source catalog. The source was detected in all the four WISE photometric bands. A comparison between the WISE and radio images reinforces the physical association of the \wise\ source to the hot spot. The WISE flux density of the source was carefully evaluated. A close investigation of the multi-wavelength synchrotron spectral energy distribution from the object reveals a mid-infrared excess at the wavelength of $\lambda=22$ $\mu$m with a statistical significance of $4.8 \sigma$ over the simple power-law extrapolation from the synchrotron radio spectrum. The excess is reinforced by single and double cutoff power-law modeling of the radio-to-optical spectral energy distribution. The synchrotron cutoff frequency of the main and excess components was evaluated as $7.1 \times 10^{14}$ Hz and $5.5 \times 10^{13}$ Hz, respectively. From the cutoff frequency, the magnetic field of the emission region was constrained as a function of the region size. In order to interpret the excess component, an electron population different from the main one dominating the observed radio spectrum is necessary. The excess emission is proposed to originate in a sub structure within the hot spot, in which the magnetic field is by a factor of a few stronger than that in the minimum energy condition. The relation of the mid-infrared excess to the X-ray emission is briefly discussed., Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, ApJ accepted

This paper demonstrates a cryogenic deformable mirror (DM) with 1,020 actuators based on micro-electrical mechanical systems (MEMS) technology. Cryogenic space-borne infrared telescopes can experience a wavefront error due to a figure error of their mirror surface, which makes the imaging performance worse. For on-orbit wavefront correction as one solution, we developed a MEMS-processed electro-static DM with a special surrounding structure for use under the cryogenic temperature. We conducted a laboratory demonstration of its operation in three cooling cycles between 5 K and 295 K. Using a laser interferometer, we detected the deformation corresponding to the applied voltages under the cryogenic temperature for the first time. The relationship between voltages and displacements was qualitatively expressed by the quadratic function, which is assumed based on the principle of electro-static DMs. We also found that it had a high operating repeatability of a few nm RMS and no significant hysteresis. Using the measured values of repeatability, we simulated the improvement of PSF by wavefront correction with our DM. These results show that our developed DM is effective in improving imaging performance and PSF contrast of space-borne infrared telescopes., Comment: 29 pages, 23 figures

We present the molecular gas mass fraction ($f_\mathrm{H_2}$) and star-formation efficiency (SFE) of local galaxies on the basis of our new CO($J=1-0$) observations with the Nobeyama 45m radio telescope, combined with the COLDGASS galaxy catalog, as a function of galaxy environment defined as the local number density of galaxies measured with SDSS DR7 spectroscopic data. Our sample covers a wide range in the stellar mass and SFR, and covers wide environmental range over two orders of magnitude. This allows us to conduct the first, systematic study of environmental dependence of molecular gas properties in galaxies from the lowest- to the highest-density environments in the local universe. We confirm that both $f_\mathrm{H_2}$ and SFE have strong positive correlations with the SFR offset from the star-forming main sequence ($\Delta$MS), and most importantly, we find that these correlations are universal across all environments. Our result demonstrates that star-formation activity within individual galaxies is primarily controlled by their molecular gas content, regardless of their global environment. Therefore, we claim that one always needs to be careful about the $\Delta$MS distribution of the sample when investigating the environmental effects on the H$_2$ gas content in galaxies., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

We have developed an efficient Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) selection method using 18-band Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) fitting in mid-infrared (mid-IR). AGNs are often obscured by gas and dust, and those obscured AGNs tend to be missed in optical, UV and soft X-ray observations. Mid-IR light can help us to recover them in an obscuration free way using their thermal emission. On the other hand, Star-Forming Galaxies (SFG) also have strong PAH emission features in mid-IR. Hence, establishing an accurate method to separate populations of AGN and SFG is important. However, in previous mid-IR surveys, only 3 or 4 filters were available, and thus the selection was limited. We combined AKARI's continuous 9 mid-IR bands with WISE and Spitzer data to create 18 mid-IR bands for AGN selection. Among 4682 galaxies in the AKARI NEP deep field, 1388 are selected to be AGN hosts, which implies an AGN fraction of 29.6$\pm$0.8$\%$ (among them 47$\%$ are Seyfert 1.8 and 2). Comparing the result from SED fitting into WISE and Spitzer colour-colour diagram reveals that Seyferts are often missed by previous studies. Our result has been tested by stacking median magnitude for each sample. Using X-ray data from Chandra, we compared the result of our SED fitting with WISE's colour box selection. We recovered more X-ray detected AGN than previous methods by 20$\%$., Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures; accepted for publication in MNRAS; A video summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMfH0vkStqk

We produce a catalogue of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) 3.3 $\mu$m, Br$\alpha$ and infrared luminosity ($L$(IR)) of 412 local galaxies, and investigate a relation between these physical parameters. We measure the PAH 3.3 $\mu$m and Br$\alpha$ flux using AKARI 2-5 $\mu$m spectra and the $L$(IR) using the AKARI-all-sky-survey data. The $L$(IR) and redshift ranges of our sample are $L$(IR)=$10^{9.7-12.8}$L$_\odot$ and $z_{\rm spec}=0.002-0.3$, respectively. We found that the ratio of $L$(PAH 3.3 $\mu$m) to $L$(IR) is constant at $L$(IR) $<$ $10^{11} \rm L_\odot$ whereas it decreases with the $L$(IR) at higher $L$(IR). Also, the ratio of $L$(Br$\alpha$) to $L$(IR) decreases with the $L$(IR). The both $L$(PAH)/$L$(IR) and $L$(Br$\alpha$)/$L$(IR) ratios are not strongly dependent on galaxy type and dust temperature. The relative weakness of the two ratios could be attributed to destruction of PAH, a lack of UV photons exciting PAH molecules or ionising hydrogen gas, extremely high dust attenuation, or active galactic nucleus contribution to the $L$(IR). Although we cannot determine the cause of the decreases of the luminosity ratios, a clear correlation between them implies that they are related with each other. The catalogue presented in our work will be available at the AKARI archive web page., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in PASJ. Catalogue is available from http://www.ir.isas.jaxa.jp/AKARI/Archive/Catalogues/IRC_PAHBR/

We present an initial result from the 12CO (J=1-0) survey of 79 galaxies in 62 local luminous and ultra-luminous infrared galaxy (LIRG and ULIRG) systems obtained using the 45 m telescope at the Nobeyama Radio Observatory. This is the systematic 12CO (J=1-0) survey of the Great Observatories All-sky LIRGs Survey (GOALS) sample. The molecular gas mass of the sample ranges 2.2 x 10^8 - 7.0 x 10^9 Msun within the central several kiloparsecs subtending 15" beam. A method to estimate a size of a CO gas distribution is introduced, which is combined with the total CO flux in the literature. The method is applied to a part of our sample and we find that the median CO radius is 1-4 kpc. From the early stage to the late stage of mergers, we find that the CO size decreases while the median value of the molecular gas mass in the central several kpc region is constant. Our results statistically support a scenario where molecular gas inflows towards the central region from the outer disk, to replenish gas consumed by starburst, and that such a process is common in merging LIRGs., Comment: 25 pages, 22 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Mass, metallicity, and star formation rate (SFR) of a galaxy are crucial parameters in understanding galaxy formation and evolution. However, the relation among these is still a matter of debate for luminous infrared galaxies, which carry a bulk of SFR budget of the universe at $z\sim1$. We have investigated the relation among stellar mass, gas-phase oxygen abundance, and SFR of AKARI-detected mid-IR galaxies at $z\sim0.88$ in the AKARI NEP deep field. We observed about 350 AKARI sources with Subaru/FMOS NIR spectrograph, and detected secure and expected H$\alpha$ emission lines from 25 and 44 galaxies, respectively. The SFR of our sample is almost constant ($\sim 25M_{\odot}/yr$) over the stellar mass range of our sample. Compared with main-sequence (MS) galaxies at a similar redshift range, the average SFR of our detected sample is comparable for massive galaxies ($\sim10^{10.58}~M_{\odot}$), while higher by $\sim$0.6dex for less massive galaxies ($\sim 10^{10.05}~M_{\odot}$). We measure metallicities from the [NII]/H$\alpha$ emission line ratio. We find that the mass-metallicity relation of our individually measured sources agrees with that for optical-selected star-forming galaxies at $z\sim0.1$, while metallicities of stacked spectra agree with that of MS galaxies at $z\sim0.78$. Considering high SFR of individually measured sources, FMR of the IR galaxies is different from that at $z\sim0.1$. However, on the mass-metallicity plane, they are consistent with the MS galaxies, highlighting higher SFR of the IR galaxies. This suggests the evolutionary path of our IR galaxies is different from that of MS galaxies. A possible physical interpretation includes that the star-formation activities of IR galaxies at $z\sim0.88$ in our sample are enhanced by interaction and/or merger of galaxies, but the inflow of metal-poor gas is not yet induced, keeping the metallicity intact., Comment: 35 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in PASJ

We investigate the star forming activity of a sample of infrared (IR)-bright dust-obscured galaxies (DOGs) that show an extreme red color in the optical and IR regime, $(i - [22])_{\rm AB} > 7.0$. Combining an IR-bright DOG sample with the flux at 22 $\mu$m $>$ 3.8 mJy discovered by Toba & Nagao (2016) with IRAS faint source catalog version 2 and AKARI far-IR (FIR) all-sky survey bright source catalog version 2, we selected 109 DOGs with FIR data. For a subsample of 7 IR-bright DOGs with spectroscopic redshift ($0.07 < z < 1.0$) that was obtained from literature, we estimated their IR luminosity, star formation rate (SFR), and stellar mass based on the spectral energy distribution fitting. We found that (i) WISE 22 $\mu$m luminosity at observed frame is a good indicator of IR luminosity for IR-bright DOGs and (ii) the contribution of active galactic nucleus (AGN) to IR luminosity increases with IR luminosity. By comparing the stellar mass and SFR relation for our DOG sample and literature, we found that most of IR-bright DOGs lie significantly above the main sequence of star-forming galaxies at similar redshift, indicating that the majority of IRAS- and/or AKARI-detected IR-bright DOGs are starburst galaxies., Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, and 1 table, accepted for publication in ApJ

We present measurements of the clustering properties of a sample of infrared (IR) bright dust-obscured galaxies (DOGs). Combining 125 deg$^2$ of wide and deep optical images obtained with the Hyper Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope and all-sky mid-IR (MIR) images taken with Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, we have discovered 4,367 IR-bright DOGs with $(i - [22])_{\rm AB}$ $>$ 7.0 and flux density at 22 $\mu$m $>$ 1.0 mJy. We calculate the angular autocorrelation function (ACF) for a uniform subsample of 1411 DOGs with 3.0 mJy $<$ flux (22 $mu$m) $<$ 5.0 mJy and $i_{\rm AB}$ $<$ 24.0. The ACF of our DOG subsample is well-fit with a single power-law, $\omega (\theta)$ = (0.010 $\pm$ 0.003) $\theta^{-0.9}$, where $\theta$ in degrees. The correlation amplitude of IR-bright DOGs is larger than that of IR-faint DOGs, which reflects a flux-dependence of the DOG clustering, as suggested by Brodwin et al. (2008). We assume that the redshift distribution for our DOG sample is Gaussian, and consider 2 cases: (1) the redshift distribution is the same as IR-faint DOGs with flux at 22 $\mu$m $<$ 1.0 mJy, mean and sigma $z$ = 1.99 $\pm$ 0.45, and (2) $z$ = 1.19 $\pm$ 0.30, as inferred from their photometric redshifts. The inferred correlation length of IR-bright DOGs is $r_0$ = 12.0 $\pm$ 2.0 and 10.3 $\pm$ 1.7 $h^{-1}$ Mpc, respectively. IR-bright DOGs reside in massive dark matter halos with a mass of $\log [\langle M_{\mathrm{h}} \rangle / (h^{-1} M_{\odot})]$ = 13.57$_{-0.55}^{+0.50}$ and 13.65$_{-0.52}^{+0.45}$ in the two cases, respectively., Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, and 1 table, accepted for publication in ApJ

We report a new sample of obscured active galactic nuclei (AGNs) selected from the XMM serendipitous source and AKARI point-source catalogs. We match X-ray sources with infrared (18 and 90 micron) sources located at |b|>10 deg to create a sample consisting of 173 objects. Their optical classifications and absorption column densities measured by X-ray spectra are compiled and study efficient selection criteria to find obscured AGNs. We apply the criteria (1) X-ray hardness ratio defined by using the 2-4.5 keV and 4.5-12 keV bands >-0.1 and (2) EPIC-PN count rate (CR) in the 0.2-12 keV to infrared flux ratio CR/F90<0.1 or CR/F18<1, where F18 and F90 are infrared fluxes at 18 and 90 micron in Jy, respectively, to search for obscured AGNs. X-ray spectra of 48 candidates, for which no X-ray results have been published, are analyzed and X-ray evidence for the presence of obscured AGNs such as a convex shape X-ray spectrum indicative of absorption of NH~10^{22-24} cm^-2, a very flat continuum, or a strong Fe-K emission line with an equivalent width of >700 eV is found in 26 objects. Six among them are classified as Compton-thick AGNs, and four are represented by either Compton-thin or Compton-thick spectral models. The success rate of finding obscured AGNs combining our analysis and the literature is 92% if the 18 micron condition is used. Of the 26 objects, 4 are optically classified as an HII nucleus and are new "elusive AGNs" in which star formation activity likely overwhelms AGN emission in the optical and infrared bands., Comment: 36 pages, To appear in the Astrophysical Journal

We present mid-infrared (MIR) luminosity functions (LFs) of local star-forming (SF) galaxies in the AKARI NEP-Wide Survey field. In order to derive more accurate luminosity function, we used spectroscopic sample only. Based on the NEP-Wide point source catalogue containing a large number of infrared (IR) sources distributed over the wide (5.4 sq. deg.) field, we incorporated the spectroscopic redshift data for about 1790 selected targets obtained by optical follow-up surveys with MMT/Hectospec and WIYN/Hydra. The AKARI continuous 2 to 24 micron wavelength coverage as well as photometric data from optical u band to NIR H-band with the spectroscopic redshifts for our sample galaxies enable us to derive accurate spectral energy distributions (SEDs) in the mid-infrared. We carried out SED fit analysis and employed 1/Vmax method to derive the MIR (8, 12, and 15 micron rest-frame) luminosity functions. We fit our 8 micron LFs to the double power-law with the power index of alpha= 1.53 and beta= 2.85 at the break luminosity. We made extensive comparisons with various MIR LFs from several literatures. Our results for local galaxies from the NEP region are generally consistent with other works for different fields over wide luminosity ranges. The comparisons with the results from the NEP-Deep data as well as other LFs imply the luminosity evolution from higher redshifts towards the present epoch., Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures

We study the environmental dependence of the strength of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission by AKARI observations of RX J0152.7-1357, a galaxy cluster at z=0.84. PAH emission reflects the physical conditions of galaxies and dominates 8 um luminosity (L8), which can directly be measured with the L15 band of AKARI. L8 to infrared luminosity (LIR) ratio is used as a tracer of the PAH strength. Both photometric and spectroscopic redshifts are applied to identify the cluster members. The L15-band-detected galaxies tend to reside in the outskirt of the cluster and have optically green colour, R-z'~ 1.2. We find no clear difference of the L8/LIR behaviour of galaxies in field and cluster environment. The L8/LIR of cluster galaxies decreases with specific-star-formation rate divided by that of main-sequence galaxies, and with LIR, consistent with the results for field galaxies. The relation between L8/LIR and LIR is between those at z=0 and z=2 in the literature. Our data also shows that starburst galaxies, which have lower L8/LIR than main-sequence, are located only in the outskirt of the cluster. All these findings extend previous studies, indicating that environment affects only the fraction of galaxy types and does not affect the L8/LIR behaviour of star-forming galaxies., Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for Publication in A&A

Infrared (IR) luminosity is fundamental to understanding the cosmic star formation history and AGN evolution, since their most intense stages are often obscured by dust. Japanese infrared satellite, AKARI, provided unique data sets to probe these both at low and high redshifts. The AKARI performed an all sky survey in 6 IR bands (9, 18, 65, 90, 140, and 160$\mu$m) with 3-10 times better sensitivity than IRAS, covering the crucial far-IR wavelengths across the peak of the dust emission. Combined with a better spatial resolution, AKARI can measure the total infrared luminosity ($L_{TIR}$) of individual galaxies much more precisely, and thus, the total infrared luminosity density of the local Universe. In the AKARI NEP deep field, we construct restframe 8$\mu$m, 12$\mu$m, and total infrared (TIR) luminosity functions (LFs) at 0.15$

We present infrared galaxy luminosity functions (LFs) in the AKARI North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) deep field using recently-obtained, wider CFHT optical/near-IR images. AKARI has obtained deep images in the mid-infrared (IR), covering 0.6 deg$^2$ of the NEP deep field. However, our previous work was limited to the central area of 0.25 deg$^2$ due to the lack of optical coverage of the full AKARI NEP survey. To rectify the situation, we recently obtained CFHT optical and near-IR images over the entire AKARI NEP deep field. These new CFHT images are used to derive accurate photometric redshifts, allowing us to fully exploit the whole AKARI NEP deep field. AKARI's deep, continuous filter coverage in the mid-IR wavelengths (2.4, 3.2, 4.1, 7, 9, 11, 15, 18, and 24$\mu$m) exists nowhere else, due to filter gaps of other space telescopes. It allows us to estimate restframe 8$\mu$m and 12$\mu$m luminosities without using a large extrapolation based on spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting, which was the largest uncertainty in previous studies. Total infrared luminosity (TIR) is also obtained more reliably due to the superior filter coverage. The resulting restframe 8$\mu$m, 12$\mu$m, and TIR LFs at $0.15

We present the photometric properties of a sample of infrared (IR) bright dust obscured galaxies (DOGs). Combining wide and deep optical images obtained with the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) on the Subaru Telescope and all-sky mid-IR (MIR) images taken with Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), we discovered 48 DOGs with $i - K_\mathrm{s} > 1.2$ and $i - [22] > 7.0$, where $i$, $K_\mathrm{s}$, and [22] represent AB magnitude in the $i$-band, $K_\mathrm{s}$-band, and 22 $\mu$m, respectively, in the GAMA 14hr field ($\sim$ 9 deg$^2$). Among these objects, 31 ($\sim$ 65 %) show power-law spectral energy distributions (SEDs) in the near-IR (NIR) and MIR regime, while the remainder show a NIR bump in their SEDs. Assuming that the redshift distribution for our DOGs sample is Gaussian, with mean and sigma $z$ = 1.99 $\pm$ 0.45, we calculated their total IR luminosity using an empirical relation between 22 $\mu$m luminosity and total IR luminosity. The average value of the total IR luminosity is (3.5 $\pm$ 1.1) $\times$ $10^{13}$ L$_{\odot}$, which classifies them as hyper-luminous infrared galaxies (HyLIRGs). We also derived the total IR luminosity function (LF) and IR luminosity density (LD) for a flux-limited subsample of 18 DOGs with 22 $\mu$m flux greater than 3.0 mJy and with $i$-band magnitude brighter than 24 AB magnitude. The derived space density for this subsample is log $\phi$ = -6.59 $\pm$ 0.11 [Mpc$^{-3}$]. The IR LF for DOGs including data obtained from the literature is well fitted by a double-power law. The derived lower limit for the IR LD for our sample is $\rho_{\mathrm{IR}}$ $\sim$ 3.8 $\times$ 10$^7$ [L$_{\odot}$ Mpc$^{-3}$] and its contributions to the total IR LD, IR LD of all ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs), and that of all DOGs are $>$ 3 %, $>$ 9 %, and $>$ 15 %, respectively., Comment: 15 pages, 15 figures, and 3 tables, accepted for publication in PASJ (Subaru special issue)

We present 2.5-5.0 $\mu$m spectra of 83 nearby ($0.002\,<\,z\,<\,0.48$) and bright ($K<14$mag) type-1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) taken with the Infrared Camera (IRC) on board $\it{AKARI}$. The 2.5-5.0 $\mu$m spectral region contains emission lines such as Br$\beta$ (2.63 $\mu$m), Br$\alpha$ (4.05 $\mu$m), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH; 3.3 $\mu$m), which can be used for studying the black hole (BH) masses and star formation activities in the host galaxies of AGNs. The spectral region also suffers less dust extinction than in the ultra violet (UV) or optical wavelengths, which may provide an unobscured view of dusty AGNs. Our sample is selected from bright quasar surveys of Palomar-Green (PG) and SNUQSO, and AGNs with reverberation-mapped BH masses from Peterson et al. (2004). Using 11 AGNs with reliable detection of Brackett lines, we derive the Brackett-line-based BH mass estimators. We also find that the observed Brackett line ratios can be explained with the commonly adopted physical conditions of the broad line region (BLR). Moreover, we fit the hot and warm dust components of the dust torus by adding photometric data of SDSS, 2MASS, $\it{WISE}$, and $\it{ISO}$ to the $\it{AKARI}$ spectra, finding hot and warm dust temperatures of $\sim1100\,\rm{K}$ and $\sim220\,\rm{K}$, respectively, rather than the commonly cited hot dust temperature of 1500 K., Comment: 39 pages, 16 figures, 5 tables. Published in ApJS

We present the J and H-band source catalog covering the AKARI North Ecliptic Pole field. Filling the gap between the optical data from other follow-up observations and mid-infrared (MIR) data from AKARI, our near-infrared (NIR) data provides contiguous wavelength coverage from optical to MIR. For the J and H-band imaging, we used the FLoridA Multi-object Imaging Near-ir Grism Observational Spectrometer (FLAMINGOS) on the Kitt Peak National Observatory 2.1m telescope covering a 5.1 deg2 area down to a 5 sigma depth of ~21.6 mag and ~21.3 mag (AB) for J and H-band with an astrometric accuracy of 0.14" and 0.17" for 1 sigma in R.A. and Decl. directions, respectively. We detected 208,020 sources for J-band and 203,832 sources for H-band. This NIR data is being used for studies including analysis of the physical properties of infrared sources such as stellar mass and photometric redshifts, and will be a valuable dataset for various future missions., Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, 7 tables. Published 2014 September 18 in Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series

In this work, we investigate the dependence of the covering factor (CF) of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) (i) on the mid-infrared (MIR) luminosity and (ii) on the redshift. We constructed 12- and 22-micron luminosity functions (LFs) at 0.006 < z < 0.3 using the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer} (WISE) data. Combining the WISE catalog with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectroscopic data, we selected 223,982 galaxies at 12 micron and 25,721 galaxies at 22 micron for spectroscopic classification. We then identified 16,355 AGNs at 12 micron and 4,683 AGNs at 22 micron by their optical emission lines and cataloged classifications in the SDSS. Following that, we estimated the CF as the fraction of type 2 AGN in all AGNs whose MIR emissions are dominated by the active nucleus (not their host galaxies) based on their MIR colors. We found that (i) the CF decreased with increasing MIR luminosity, regardless of the choice of type 2 AGN classification criteria, and (ii) the CF did not change significantly with the redshift for z < 0.2. Furthermore, we carried out various tests to determine the influence of selection bias and confirmed similar dependences exist even when taking these uncertainties into account. The luminosity dependence of the CF can be explained by the receding torus model, but the "modified" receding torus model gives a slightly better fit, as suggested by Simpson., Comment: 82 pages, 34 figures, and 12 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ

Aims. We present an 8-band (u*, g', r', i', z', Y, J, Ks) optical to NIR deep photometric catalog based on the observations made with MegaCam and WIRCam at CFHT, and compute photometric redshifts, zp in the North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) region. Our catalog provides us to identify the counterparts, and zp for AKARI NIR/MIR sources. Results. The estimated 4sigma detection limits within an 1" aperture radius are 26.7, 25.9, 25.1, and 24.1 mag [AB] for g', r', i', and z'-bands and 23.4, 23.0, and 22.7 mag for Y, J, and Ks-bands, respectively. There are a total of 85797 sources in the band-merged catalog. An astrometric accuracy of this catalog determined by examining coordinate offsets with regard to 2MASS is 0.013" with a root mean square offset of 0.32". We distinguish 5441 secure stars from extended sources using u*-J vs. g'-Ks colors, combined with the SExtractor stellarity index of the images. Comparing with galaxy spectroscopic redshifts, we find a photometric redshift dispersion, sigma_(dz/(1+z)), of 0.032 and catastrophic failure rate, dz/(1+z)>0.15, of 5.8% at z<1, while a dispersion of 0.117 and a catastrophic failures rate of 16.6% at z>1. We extend estimate of the zp uncertainty over the full magnitude/redshift space with a redshift probability distribution function and find that our redshift are highly accurate with z'<22 at zp<2.5 and for fainter sources with z'<24 at z<1. From the investigation of photometric properties of AKARI infrared sources (23354 sources) using the g'z'Ks diagram, <5% of AKARI sources with optical counterparts are classified as high-z (1.4