Mock catalogs for the extragalactic X-ray sky
By Stefano Marchesi
In this paper, we present new mock catalogs of active galactic nuclei (AGN), non-active galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, that we make available for the community here. These mocks can be used to simulate surveys with current and future X-ray facilities. In our work, we used the mocks to simulate future surveys with the AXIS probe and with the Athena Wide Field Imager. Athena unprecedentedly deep observations, as shown in the figure below, will open a whole new window of knowledge on AGN formation and evolution. In particular, Athena will significantly increase our understanding of the early Universe, detecting hundreds of accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at z>6 (i.e., when the Universe was <1 Gyr old). This would enable, among other things, an accurate tuning of theoretical SMBH accretion models.