X-ray stacking analysis of Chandra-COSMOS gal.

The stacks at z<0.9 have luminosity limits as low as 10^40^-10^41^erg/s, a regime in which X-ray binaries (XRBs) can dominate the X-ray emission. Comparing the measured luminosities to established XRB scaling relations, we find that the redshift evolution of the luminosity per star formation rate (SFR) of XRBs depends sensitively on the assumed obscuration and may be weaker than previously found.

The XRB scaling relation based on stacks from the Chandra Deep Field South overestimates the XRB contribution to the COSMOS high specific SFR stacks, possibly due to a bias affecting the CDF-S stacks because of their small galaxy samples. After subtracting the estimated XRB contribution from the stacks, we find that most stacks at z>1.3 exhibit a significant X-ray excess indicating nuclear emission. The AGN emission is strongly correlated with stellar mass but does not exhibit an additional correlation with SFR.