The WISSH quasars project XI. The mean Spectral Energy Distribution and Bolometric Corrections of the most luminous quasars

TL;DR

This study constructs the mean spectral energy distribution of 85 hyper-luminous quasars, revealing distinct properties such as lower X-ray emission and enhanced dust emission, which differ from less luminous quasars and impact bolometric correction estimates.

Contribution

The paper provides the first mean SED for hyper-luminous quasars, highlighting their unique IR and X-ray features and introducing a new 3 micron bolometric correction relation.

Findings

Hyper-luminous quasars show lower X-ray emission compared to less luminous sources.

They exhibit a near and mid IR excess due to increased dust contribution.

BAL quasars are X-ray weak, reddened, and have stronger hot dust emission.

Abstract

Hyper-luminous Quasi-Stellar Objects (QSOs) represent the ideal laboratory to investigate Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) feedback mechanism since their formidable energy release causes powerful winds at all scales and thus the maximum feedback is expected. We aim at deriving the mean Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) of a sample of 85 WISE-SDSS Selected Hyper-luminous (WISSH) quasars. Since the SED provides a direct way to investigate the AGN structure, our goal is to understand if quasars at the bright end of the luminosity function have peculiar properties compared to the bulk of the population. We built a mean intrinsic SED after correcting for the dust extinction, absorption and emission lines and intergalactic medium absorption. We also derived bolometric, IR band and monochromatic luminosities together with bolometric corrections at lambda = 5100 A and 3 micron. We define a new relation for the 3 micron bolometric correction. We find that the mean SED of hyper-luminous WISSH QSOs is different from that of less luminous sources, i.e. a relatively lower X-ray emission and a near and mid IR excess which can be explained assuming a larger dust contribution. WISSH QSOs have stronger emission from both warm and very hot dust, the latter being responsible for shifting the typical dip of the AGN SED from 1.3 to 1.1 micron. We also derived the mean SEDs of two sub-samples created according to the presence of Broad Absorption Lines and equivalent width of CIV line. We confirm that BALs are X-ray weak and that they have a reddened UV-optical continuum. We also find that BALs tend to have stronger emission from the hot dust component. This analysis suggests that hyper-luminous QSOs have a peculiar SED compared to less luminous objects. It is therefore critical to use SED templates constructed exclusively from very bright quasars samples when dealing with particularly luminous sources.