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Register a new userA comprehensive analysis of the hard X-ray spectra of bright Seyfert galaxies
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Hard X-ray spectra of 28 bright Seyfert galaxies observed with INTEGRAL were analyzed together with the X-ray spectra from XMM-Newton, Suzaku and RXTE. These broad-band data were fitted with a model assuming a thermal Comptonization as a primary continuum component. We tested several model options through a fitting of the Comptonized continuum accompanied by a complex absorption and a Compton reflection. Both the large data set used and the model space explored allowed us to accurately determine a mean temperature kTe of the electron plasma, the Compton parameter y and the Compton reflection strength R for the majority of objects in the sample. Our main finding is that a vast majority of the sample (20 objects) is characterized by kTe < 100 keV, and only for two objects we found kTe > 200 keV. The median kTe for entire sample is 48(-14,+57) keV. The distribution of the y parameter is bimodal, with a broad component centered at ~0.8 and a narrow peak at ~1.1. A complex, dual absorber model improved the fit for all data sets, compared to a simple absorption model, reducing the fitted strength of Compton reflection by a factor of about 2. Modest reflection (median R ~0.32) together with a high ratio of Comptonized to seed photon fluxes point towards a geometry with a compact hard X-ray emitting region well separated from the accretion disc. Our results imply that the template Seyferts spectra used in AGN population synthesis models should be revised.
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NuSTAR observatory, with its 3 - 78 keV broadband spectral coverage, enables the detections of the high-energy cutoff in a number of active galaxies, including several individual radio loud ones. In this work we present systematic and uniform analyses of 55 NuSTAR spectra for a large sample of 28 radio galaxies, 20 of which are FR II galaxies. We perform spectral fitting to measure the high energy cut-off $E_{cut}$, photon index $Gamma$, reflection factor R and Fe K$alpha$ line equivalent width. Measurements of $E_{cut}$ are given for 13 sources, and lower limits for the rest. We find those $E_{cut}$ non-detections could primarily be attributed to the obviously smaller net photon counts in their spectra. This indicates that the NuSTAR spectra of the majority of our sample are dominated by the thermal corona emission, and the $E_{cut}$ distribution of the sample is indistinguishable from that of a radio quiet one in literature. The flatter NuSTAR spectra we observed, comparing with radio quiet sources, are thus unlikely due to jet contamination. The radio galaxies also show weaker X-ray reflection (both in R and Fe K$alpha$ line EW) comparing with radio quiet ones. Combining with the radio quiet sample we see a correlation between R and EW, but with considerably large scatter. Notably, the radio loud and quiet sources appear to follow a common $Gamma$ - R correlation trend, supporting the outflowing corona model for both populations in which higher bulk outflowing velocity yields weaker reflection and flatter X-ray slope.
Narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s) is one of the few classes of active galactic nuclei (AGN) harboring powerful relativistic jets and detected in $gamma$ rays. NLS1s are well-known X-ray sources. While in non-jetted sources the origin of this X-ray emission may be a hot corona surrounding the accretion disk, in jetted objects, especially beamed ones, the contribution of corona and relativistic jet is difficult to disentangle without a proper sampling of the hard X-ray emission. For this reason, we observed with textit{NuSTAR} the first four NLS1s detected at high energy $gamma$ rays. These data, along with textit{XMM-Newton} and textit{Swift/XRT} observations, confirmed that X rays originate both in the jet and in the accretion disk corona. Time variability in hard X rays furthermore suggests that, as observed in flat-spectrum radio quasars, the dissipation region during flares could change its position from source to source, and it can be located both inside and outside the broad-line region. We find that jetted NLS1s, and other blazars as well, seem not to follow the classical fundamental plane of black hole activity, which therefore should be used as a black hole mass estimator in blazars with extreme care only. Our results strengthen the idea according to which $gamma$-NLS1s are smaller and younger version of flat-spectrum radio quasars, in which both a Seyfert and a blazar component co-exist.
Using the latest 70 month Swift-BAT catalog we examined hard X-ray selected Seyfert I galaxies which are relatively little known and little studied, and yet potentially promising to test the ionized relativistic reflection model. From this list we chose 13 sources which have been observed by XMM-Newton for less than 20 ks, in order to explore the broad band soft to hard X-ray properties with the analysis of combined XMM-Newton and Swift data. Out of these we found seven sources which exhibit potentially promising features of the relativistic disc reflection, such as a strong soft excess, a large Compton hump and/or a broadened Fe line. Longer observations of four of these sources with the currently operating satellite missions, such as Suzaku, XMM-Newton and NuStar and two others by such future missions as ASTRO-H, will be invaluable, in order to better understand the relativistic disc reflection closest to the central black hole and constrain such important effects of strong gravity as the black hole spin.
We present results of a 100 ks XMM observation of the Seyfert 1.5 NGC 3227. Our best-fit broadband model to the pn spectrum consists of a moderately flat (photon index 1.57) hard X-ray power-law absorbed by cold gas with N_H = 3 * 10^21 cm^-2, plus a strong soft excess, modeled as a steep power law with a photon index of 3.35, absorbed by cold gas with N_H = 9 * 10^20 cm^-2. The soft excess normalization increases by ~20% in ~20 ks, independently of the hard X-ray component, and the UV continuum, tracked via the OM, also shows a strong increasing trend over the observation, consistent with reprocessing of soft X-ray emission. Warm absorber signatures are evident in both the EPIC and RGS; we model two layers, with log(xi) = 1.2 and 2.9 erg cm s^-1, and with similar column densities (~1-2 * 10^21 cm^-2). The outflow velocities relative to systemic of the high- and low-ionization absorbers are estimated to be -(2060(+240,-170)) km/s and -(420(+430,-190)) km/s, respectively. The Fe K alpha line width FWHM is 7000 +/- 1500 km/s; its inferred radius is consistent with the BLR and with the inner radius of the dust reverberation-mapped by Suganuma et al. An emission feature near 6.0 keV is modeled equally well as a narrow redshifted Fe K line, possibly associated with a disk hot-spot, or as the red wing to a relativistically broadened Fe line profile. Swift-BAT and archival RXTE data suggest at most weak Compton reflection (R <~ 0.5), and a high-energy cutoff near 100 keV. From RXTE monitoring, we find tentative evidence for a significant fraction of the Fe line flux to track continuum variations on time scales < 700 days.
We characterize for the first time the torus properties of an ultra-hard X-ray (14-195 keV) volume-limited (DL<40 Mpc) sample of 24 Seyfert (Sy) galaxies (BCS40 sample). The sample was selected from the Swift/BAT nine month catalog. We use high angular resolution nuclear infrared (IR) photometry and N-band spectroscopy, the CLUMPY torus models and a Bayesian tool to characterize the properties of the nuclear dust. In the case of the Sy1s we estimate the accretion disk contribution to the subarcsecond resolution nuclear IR SEDs (~0.4) which is, on average, 46+-28, 23+-13 and 11+-5% in the J-, H- and K-bands, respectively. This indicates that the accretion disk templates that assume a steep fall for longer wavelengths than 1 micron might underestimate its contribution to the near-IR emission. Using both optical (broad vs narrow lines) and X-ray (unabsorbed vs absorbed) classifications, we compare the global posterior distribution of the torus model parameters. We confirm that Sy2s have larger values of the torus covering factor (CT~0.95) than Sy1s (CT~0.65) in our volume-limited Seyfert sample. These findings are independent of whether we use an optical or X-ray classification. We find that the torus covering factor remains essentially constant within the errors in our luminosity range and there is no clear dependence with the Eddington ratio. Finally, we find tentative evidence that even an ultra hard X-ray selection is missing a significant fraction of highly absorbed type 2 sources with very high covering factor tori.
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