Dust-deficient Palomar-Green Quasars and the Diversity of AGN Intrinsic IR Emission

To elucidate the intrinsic broadband infrared (IR) emission properties of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), we analyze the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of 87 z ≲ 0.5 Palomar-Green (PG) quasars. While the Elvis AGN template with a moderate far-IR correction can reasonably match the SEDs of the AGN components in ∼60% of the sample (and is superior to alternatives such as that by Assef), it fails on two quasar populations: (1) hot-dust-deficient (HDD) quasars that show very weak emission thoroughly from the near-IR to the far-IR, and (2) warm-dust-deficient (WDD) quasars that have similar hot dust emission as normal quasars but are relatively faint in the mid- and far-IR. After building composite AGN templates for these dust-deficient quasars, we successfully fit the 0.3-500 μm SEDs of the PG sample with the appropriate AGN template, an infrared template of a star-forming galaxy, and a host galaxy stellar template. 20 HDD and 12 WDD quasars are identified from the SED decomposition, including seven ambiguous cases. Compared with normal quasars, the HDD quasars have AGNs with relatively low Eddington ratios and the fraction of WDD quasars increases with AGN luminosity. Moreover, both the HDD and WDD quasar populations show relatively stronger mid-IR silicate emission. Virtually identical SED properties are also found in some quasars from z = 0.5 to 6. We propose a conceptual model to demonstrate that the observed dust deficiency of quasars can result from a change of structures of the circumnuclear tori that can occur at any cosmic epoch.