# Revealing the differences in the SMBH accretion rate distributions of starburst and non-starburst galaxies

## TL;DR

This study compares the X-ray luminosity distributions of starburst and non-starburst galaxies, revealing that starbursts host a higher proportion of high accretion rate AGN, which explains their elevated average X-ray luminosity.

## Contribution

It introduces a method to model and compare SMBH accretion rate distributions in different galaxy types, accounting for non-detections and providing new insights into AGN activity.

## Key findings

- Starbursts have more high sLx AGN than non-starbursts.
- The higher AGN activity explains increased X-ray luminosity with SFR.
- Method effectively incorporates upper limits in distribution modeling.

## Abstract

We infer and compare the specific X-ray luminosity distributions for a sample of massive (i.e. $\log_{10} (M*/M\odot) > 10.5$) galaxies split according to their far-infrared-derived star-forming properties (i.e., starburst and non-starburst) and redshift. We model each distribution as a power-law with an upper and lower turnover, and adopt a maximum likelihood method to include information from non-detections in the form of upper limits. When we use our inferred distributions to calculate the ratios of high to low sLx AGN (corresponding to above and below $0.1\lambda_{\text{Edd}}$, respectively) we find that starbursts have significantly higher proportions of high sLx AGN compared to their non-starburst counterparts. These findings help explain the increase in average X-ray luminosity in bins of increasing SFR reported by previous studies.