The XMM-SSC survey of hard-spectrum XMM–Newton sources – I. Optically bright sources.

We present optical and X-ray data for a sample of serendipitous XMM–Newton sources that are selected to have 0.5–2 versus 2–4.5 keV X-ray hardness ratios which are harder than the X-ray background. The sources have 2–4.5 keV X-ray flux , and in this paper we examine a subsample of 42 optically bright sources; this subsample is 100 per cent spectroscopically identified. All but one of the optical counterparts are extragalactic, and we argue that the single exception, a Galactic M star, is probably a coincidental association rather than the correct identification of the X-ray source. The X-ray spectra of all the sources are consistent with heavily absorbed power laws , and all of them, including the two sources with 2–10 keV intrinsic luminosities of , appear to be absorbed active galactic nuclei (AGN). The majority of the sources show only narrow emission lines in their optical spectra, implying that they are type 2 AGN. Three sources have 2–10 keV luminosities of , and two of these sources have optical spectra which are dominated by narrow emission lines, that is, are type 2 QSOs. Only a small fraction of the sources (7/42) show broad optical emission lines, and all of these have . This implies that ratios of X-ray absorption to optical/ultraviolet extinction equivalent to times the Galactic gas-to-dust ratio are rare in AGN absorbers (at most a few per cent of the population), and may be restricted to broad absorption line QSOs. Seven objects appear to have an additional soft X-ray component in addition to the heavily absorbed power law; all seven are narrow emission-line objects with and 2–10 keV intrinsic luminosities . We consider the implications of our results in the light of the AGN unified scheme. We find that the soft components in narrow-line objects are consistent with the unified scheme provided that per cent of broad-line AGN (BLAGN) have ionized absorbers that attenuate their soft X-ray flux by >50 per cent. In at least one of the X-ray-absorbed BLAGN in our sample the X-ray spectrum requires an ionized absorber, consistent with this picture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]