Mock catalogs for the extragalactic X-ray sky: simulating AGN surveys with Athena and with the AXIS probe

TL;DR

This paper introduces new mock catalogs of X-ray sources for simulating future AGN surveys with Athena and AXIS, enabling better understanding of the deep X-ray universe and early black hole evolution.

Contribution

It provides publicly available, highly sensitive mock catalogs based on current observations, tailored for simulating next-generation X-ray surveys with Athena and AXIS.

Findings

AXIS could detect ~225,000 AGNs in 15 Ms, reaching unprecedented flux limits.

Surveys with AXIS and Athena will discover thousands of high-redshift AGNs, including z>6.

Next-generation surveys will detect most sources for the first time in X-rays.

Abstract

We present a series of new, publicly available mock catalogs of X-ray selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs), non-active galaxies, and clusters of galaxies. They are based on up-to-date observational results on the demographic of extragalactic X-ray sources and their extrapolations.These mocks reach fluxes below 1E-20 erg s-1 cm-2 in the 0.5-2 keV band, i.e., more than an order of magnitude below the predicted limits of future deep fields, and therefore represent an important tool for simulating extragalactic X-ray surveys with both current and future telescopes. We use our mocks to perform a set of end-to-end simulations of X-ray surveys with the forthcoming Athena mission and with the AXIS probe, a sub-arcsecond resolution X-ray mission concept proposed to the Astro 2020 Decadal Survey. We find that these proposed, next generation surveys may transform our knowledge of the deep X-ray Universe. As an example, in a total observing time of 15\,Ms, AXIS would detect ~225,000 AGNs and ~$50,000 non-active galaxies, reaching a flux limit f_0.5-2~5E-19 erg/s/cm2 in the 0.5-2 keV band, with an improvement of over an order of magnitude with respect to surveys with current X-ray facilities. Consequently, 90% of these sources would be detected for the first time in the X-rays. Furthermore, we show that deep and wide X-ray surveys with instruments like AXIS and Athena are expected to detect ~20,000 z>3 AGNs and ~250 sources at redshift z>6, thus opening a new window of knowledge on the evolution of AGNs over cosmic time and putting strong constraints on the predictions of theoretical models of black hole seed accretion in the early universe.