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Register a new userInvestigating the interstellar dust through the Fe K-edge
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D. Rogantini
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The chemical and physical properties of interstellar dust in the densest regions of the Galaxy are still not well understood. X-rays provide a powerful probe since they can penetrate gas and dust over a wide range of column densities (up to $10^{24} rm{cm}^{-2}$). The interaction (scattering and absorption) with the medium imprints spectral signatures that reflect the individual atoms which constitute the gas, molecule, or solid. In this work we investigate the ability of high resolution X-ray spectroscopy to probe the properties of cosmic grains containing iron. Although iron is heavily depleted into interstellar dust, the nature of the Fe-bearing grains is still largely uncertain. In our analysis we use iron K-edge synchrotron data of minerals likely present in the ISM dust taken at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility. We explore the prospects of determining the chemical composition and the size of astrophysical dust in the Galactic centre and in molecular clouds with future X-ray missions. The energy resolution and the effective area of the present X-ray telescopes are not sufficient to detect and study the Fe K-edge, even for bright X-ray sources. From the analysis of the extinction cross sections of our dust models implemented in the spectral fitting program SPEX, the Fe K-edge is promising for investigating both the chemistry and the size distribution of the interstellar dust. We find that the chemical composition regulates the X-ray absorption fine structures in the post edge region, whereas the scattering feature in the pre-edge is sensitive to the mean grain size. Finally, we note that the Fe K-edge is insensitive to other dust properties, such as the porosity and the geometry of the dust.
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We have investigated the nature and origin of the Fe K emission lines in Mrk~205 using observations with {it Suzaku} and {it XMM-Newton}, aiming to resolve the ambiguity between a broad emission line and multiple unresolved lines of higher ionization. We detect the presence of a narrow Fe K$alpha$ emission line along with a broad band Compton reflection hump at energies $E>10 rm , keV$. These are consistent with reflected emission of hard X-ray photons off a Compton thick material of $N_{rm H} ge 2.15times 10^{24} rm cm^{-2}$. In addition we detect a partially covering ionized absorption with ionization parameter $log(xi/rm erg, cm, s^{-1})=1.9_{-0.5}^{+0.1}$, column density $N_{rm H}=(5.6_{-1.9}^{+2.0})times 10^{22}rm cm^{-2}$ and a covering factor of $0.22_{-0.06}^{+0.09}$. We detect the presence of emission arising out of ionized disk reflection contributing in the soft and the hard X-rays consistently in all the observations. We however, could not definitely ascertain the presence of a relativistically broadened Fe line in the X-ray spectra. Using relativistic reflection model, we found that the data are unable to statistically distinguish between the scenarios when the super-massive black hole is non-rotating and when it is maximally spinning. Using the disk reflection model we also find that the accretion disk of the AGN may be truncated at a distance $6R_{rm G}<R<12R_{rm G}$, which may suggest why there may not be any broad Fe line. The Eddington rate of the source is low ($lambda_{rm Edd}=0.03$), which points to an inefficient accretion, possibly due to a truncated disk.
The composition and properties of interstellar silicate dust are not well understood. In X-rays, interstellar dust can be studied in detail by making use of the fine structure features in the Si K-edge. The features in the Si K-edge offer a range of possibilities to study silicon-bearing dust, such as investigating the crystallinity, abundance, and the chemical composition along a given line of sight. We present newly acquired laboratory measurements of the silicon K-edge of several silicate-compounds that complement our measurements from our earlier pilot study. The resulting dust extinction profiles serve as templates for the interstellar extinction that we observe. The extinction profiles were used to model the interstellar dust in the dense environments of the Galaxy. The laboratory measurements, taken at the Soleil synchrotron facility in Paris, were adapted for astrophysical data analysis and implemented in the SPEX spectral fitting program. The models were used to fit the spectra of nine low-mass X-ray binaries located in the Galactic center neighborhood in order to determine the dust properties along those lines of sight. Most lines of sight can be fit well by amorphous olivine. We also established upper limits on the amount of crystalline material that the modeling allows. We obtained values of the total silicon abundance, silicon dust abundance, and depletion along each of the sightlines. We find a possible gradient of $0.06pm0.02$ dex/kpc for the total silicon abundance versus the Galactocentric distance. We do not find a relation between the depletion and the extinction along the line of sight.
We study the absorption and scattering of X-ray radiation by interstellar dust particles, which allows us to access the physical and chemical properties of dust. The interstellar dust composition is not well understood, especially on the densest sight lines of the Galactic Plane. X-rays provide a powerful tool in this study. We present newly acquired laboratory measurements of silicate compounds taken at the Soleil synchrotron facility in Paris using the Lucia beamline. The dust absorption profiles resulting from this campaign were used in this pilot study to model the absorption by interstellar dust along the line of sight of the low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) GX 5-1. The measured laboratory cross-sections were adapted for astrophysical data analysis and the resulting extinction profiles of the Si K-edge were implemented in the SPEX spectral fitting program. We derive the properties of the interstellar dust along the line of sight by fitting the Si K-edge seen in absorption in the spectrum of GX 5-1. We measured the hydrogen column density towards GX 5-1 to be $3.40pm0.1times10^{22} rm cm^{-2}$. The best fit of the silicon edge in the spectrum of GX 5-1 is obtained by a mixture of olivine and pyroxene. In this study, our modeling is limited to Si absorption by silicates with different Mg:Fe ratios. We obtained an abundance of silicon in dust of $4.0pm0.3times10^{-5}$ per H atom and a lower limit for total abundance, considering both gas and dust, of $>4.4times10^{-5}$ per H atom, which leads to a gas to dust ratio of >0.22. Furthermore, an enhanced scattering feature in the Si K-edge may suggest the presence of large particles along the line of sight.
Some reddened quasars appear to be transitional objects in the merger-induced black hole growth/galaxy evolution paradigm, where a heavily obscured nucleus starts to be unveiled by powerful quasar winds evacuating the surrounding cocoon of dust and gas. Hard X-ray observations are able to peer through this gas and dust, revealing the properties of circumnuclear obscuration. Here, we present NuSTAR and XMM-Newton/Chandra observations of FIRST-2MASS selected red quasars F2M 0830+3759 and F2M 1227+3214. We find that though F2M 0830+3759 is moderately obscured ($N_{rm H,Z} = 2.1pm0.2 times10^{22}$ cm$^{-2}$) and F2M 1227+3214 is mildly absorbed ($N_{rm H,Z} = 3.4^{+0.8}_{-0.7}times10^{21}$ cm$^{-2}$) along the line-of-sight, heavier global obscuration may be present in both sources, with $N_{rm H,S} = 3.7^{+4.1}_{-2.6} times 10^{23}$ cm$^{-2}$ and $< 5.5times10^{23}$ cm$^{-2}$, for F2M 0830+3759 and F2M 1227+3214, respectively. F2M 0830+3759 also has an excess of soft X-ray emission below 1 keV which is well accommodated by a model where 7% of the intrinsic AGN X-ray emission is scattered into the line-of-sight. While F2M 1227+3214 has a dust-to-gas ratio ($E(B-V)$/$N_{rm H}$) consistent with the Galactic value, the $E(B-V)$/$N_{rm H}$ value for F2M 0830+3759 is lower than the Galactic standard, consistent with the paradigm that the dust resides on galactic scales while the X-ray reprocessing gas originates within the dust-sublimation zone of the broad-line-region. The X-ray and 6.1$mu$m luminosities of these red quasars are consistent with the empirical relations derived for high-luminosity, unobscured quasars, extending the parameter space of obscured AGN previously observed by NuSTAR to higher luminosities.
The dense Galactic environment is a large reservoir of interstellar dust. Therefore, this region represents a perfect laboratory to study the properties of the cosmic dust grains. X-rays are the most direct way to detect the interaction of light with dust present in these dense environments. The interaction between the radiation and the interstellar matter imprints specific absorption features in the X-ray spectrum. We study them with the aim of defining the chemical composition, the crystallinity and structure of the dust grains which populate the inner regions of the Galaxy. We investigate the magnesium and the silicon K-edges detected in the Chandra/HETG spectra of eight bright X-ray binaries, distributed in the neighbourhood of the Galactic centre. We model the two spectral features using accurate extinction cross sections of silicates, that we have measured at the synchrotron facility Soleil, France. Near the Galactic centre magnesium and silicon show abundances similar to the solar ones and they are highly depleted from the gas phase ($delta_{rm{Mg}}>0.90$ and $delta_{rm{Si}}>0.96$). We find that amorphous olivine with a composition of $rm MgFeSiO_{4}$ is the most representative compound along all lines of sight according to our fits. The contribution of Mg-rich silicates and quartz is low (less than $10%$). On average we observe a percentage of crystalline dust equal to $11%$. For the extragalactic source LMC X-1, we find a preference for forsterite, a magnesium-rich olivine. Along this line of sight we also observe an underabundance of silicon $A_{rm Si}/A_{rm LMC} = 0.5pm0.2$.
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