A deep ROSAT Survey - XIV. X-ray emission from faint galaxies

Abstract

We present a cross-correlation analysis to constrain the faint galaxy contribution to the cosmic X-ray background (XRB). Cross-correlating faint optical galaxy catalogues with unidentified X-ray sources from 3 deep ROSAT fields we find that B < 23 galaxies account for 20+-7 % of all X-ray sources to a flux limit of S(0.5-2.0 keV)=4x10^{-15} erg s-1 cm-2. To probe deeper, galaxies are then cross-correlated with the remaining unresolved X-ray images. A highly significant signal is obtained on each field. Allowing for the effect of the ROSAT point-spread function, and deconvolving the effect of galaxy clustering, we find that faint B < 23 galaxies directly account for 23+-3% of the unresolved XRB at 1keV. Using the optical magnitude of faint galaxies as probes of their redshift distribution, we find evidence for strong evolution in their X-ray luminosity, parameterised with the form L_x \propto (1+z)^3.2+-1.0. Extrapolation to z=2 will account for 40+-10% of the total XRB at 1keV. The nature of the emitting mechanism in these galaxies remains unclear, but we argue that obscured and/or low luminosity AGN provide the most natural explanation.

MNRAS in press (discussion and references revised plus other minor corrections), 11 pages, 11 figures in MNRAS LaTex style. Also available at http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~omar/astro.html