Program: GS-2010B-Q-3

Mid-IR emission line diagnostics from recent Spitzer-IRS spectroscopy suggest that ~27% of bolometrically-luminous galaxies at D<15 Mpc host intrinsincally luminous AGNs (Goulding & Alexander 2009), despite the fact that many have weak optical and X-ray nuclei. Such AGNs are presumably heavily obscured and may be surrounded by potentially Compton-thick central regions. This result implies that sensitive optical surveys may be missing ~50% of the AGN population in the nearby Universe, possibly skewing our understanding of various AGN-related phenomena. The current Spitzer constraints, however, are limited by contamination due to circumnuclear star formation. Following Gandhi et al. (2009), we request T-ReCS diffraction-limited mid-IR imaging and spectroscopy for five optically-unidentified AGNs which currently lack high spatial resolution mid-IR continuum luminosity constraints. These observations will provide an unambiguous indicator of the intrinsic AGN luminosity, first order measurements of the AGN obscuration, and better constrain the incidence of Compton-thick AGNs in the local Universe.