No Arabic abstract
We have carried out an extensive X-ray spectral analysis of a sample of galaxies exhibiting molecular outflows (MOX sample), to characterize the X-ray properties and investigate the effect of AGN on the dynamical properties of the molecular outflows. We find that the X-ray bolometric correction $(L_{2-10rm keV}/L_{rm AGN})$ of these sources ranges from $sim10^{-4.5}$ to $10^{-0.5}$, with $sim 70%$ of the sources below $10^{-2}$, implying a weak X-ray emission relative to the AGN bolometric luminosity ($L_{rm AGN}$). However, the upper limit on the $2-10rm keV$ luminosity ($L_{rm 2-10 keV, ,12mu m}$) obtained from $12mu$m flux, following the correlation derived by Asmus et al., are $sim 0.5-3$ orders of magnitude larger than the $L_{2-10rm keV}$ values estimated using X-ray spectroscopy, implying a possibility that the MOX sources host normal AGN (not X-ray weak), and their X-ray spectra are extremely obscured. We find that both $L_{2-10rm keV}$, and $L_{rm AGN}$ correlates strongly with the molecular outflow velocity as well as the mass outflow rates ($dot{M}_{rm out}$), implying that the central AGN plays an important role in driving these massive outflows. However, we also find statistically significant positive correlations between the starburst emission and MO mass outflow rate, $L_{rm Starburst}$ vs $dot{M}_{rm out}$, and $L_{0.6-2rm keV}$ vs $dot{M}_{rm out}$, which implies that starbursts can generate and drive the molecular outflows. The correlations of MO velocity and $dot{M}_{rm out}$ with AGN luminosities are found to be stronger compared to those with the starburst luminosities. We conclude that both starbursts and AGN play crucial role in driving the large scale MO.
FR0s are compact radio sources that represent the bulk of the Radio-Loud (RL) AGN population, but they are still poorly understood. Pilot studies on these sources have been already performed at radio and optical wavelengths: here we present the first X-ray study of a sample of 19 FR0 radio galaxies selected from the SDSS/NVSS/FIRST sample of Best & Heckman (2012), with redshift $leq$ 0.15, radio size $leq$ 10 kpc and optically classified as low-excitation galaxies (LEG). The X-ray spectra are modeled with a power-law component absorbed by Galactic column density with, in some cases, a contribution from thermal extended gas. The X-ray photons are likely produced by the jet as attested by the observed correlation between X-ray (2-10 keV) and radio (5 GHz) luminosities, similar to FRIs. The estimated Eddington-scaled luminosities indicate a low accretion rate. Overall, we find that the X-ray properties of FR0s are indistinguishable from those of FRIs, thus adding another similarity between AGN associated with compact and extended radio sources. A comparison between FR0s and low luminosity BL Lacs, rules out important beaming effects in the X-ray emission of the compact radio galaxies. FR0s have different X-ray properties with respect to young radio sources (e.g. GPS/CSS sources), generally characterized by higher X-ray luminosities and more complex spectra. In conclusion, the paucity of extended radio emission in FR0s is probably related to the intrinsic properties of their jets that prevent the formation of extended structures, and/or to intermittent activity of their engines.
Using the 3XMM catalogue of serendipitous X-ray sources, and the SDSS-DR9 spectroscopic catalogue, we have obtained a new sample of X-ray selected narrow emission line galaxies. The standard optical diagnostic diagram and selection by hard X-ray luminosity expose a mismatch between the optically-based and X-ray-based classifications. The nature of these misclassified elusive AGN can be understood in terms of their broader X-ray and optical properties and leads to a division of this sub-sample into two groups. A little more than half are likely to be narrow-line Seyfert 1s (NLS1s), so misclassified because of the contribution of the Broad Line Region (BLR) to their optical spectra. The remainder have some of the properties of Seyfert 2 (Sy2) AGN; their optical elusiveness can be explained by optical dilution from the host galaxy plus a star-formation contribution and by their underluminous optical emission due to low accretion rates. Because some of the Sy2 sources have very low accretion rates, are unabsorbed, plus the fact that they lack broad optical emission lines, they are good candidates to be True Sy2 AGN.
A sample of X-ray and optically selected narrow emission-line galaxies (769 sources) from the 3XMM catalogue cross-correlated with SDSS (DR9) catalogue has been studied. Narrow-emission line active galactic nuclei (AGN; type-2) have been selected on the basis of their emission line ratios and/or X-ray luminosity. We have looked for X-ray unobscured type-2 AGN. As X-ray spectra were not available for our whole sample, we have checked the reliability of using the X-ray hardness ratio (HR) as a probe of the level of obscuration and we found a very good agreement with full spectral fitting results, with only 2% of the sources with apparently unobscured HR turning out to have an obscured spectrum. Despite the fact that type-2 AGN are supposed to be absorbed based on the Unified Model, about 60% of them show no sign or very low level of X-ray obscuration. After subtraction of contaminants to the sample, that is Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 and Compton-thick AGN, the fraction of unobscured Sy2 drops to 47%. For these sources, we were able to rule out dust reddening and variability for most of them as an explanation of the absence of optical broad emission-lines. The main explanations remaining are the dilution of weak/very broad emission-lines by the host galaxy and the intrinsic absence of the broad-line region (BLR) due to low accretion rates (i.e. True Sy2). However, the number of True Sy2 strongly depends on the method used to verify the intrinsic lack of broad lines. Indeed using the optical continuum luminosity to predict the BLR properties gives a much larger fraction of True Sy2 (about 90% of the unobscured Sy2 sample) than the use of the X-ray 2 keV luminosity (about 20%). Nevertheless the number of AGN we securely detected as True Sy2 is at least three times larger that the previously confirmed number of True Sy2.
Because the disc--jet coupling likely depends on various properties of sources probed, the sample control is always an important but challenging task. In this work, we re-analyzed the INTEGRAL hard X-ray-selected sample of Seyfert galaxies. We only consider sources that have measurements in black hole mass, and luminosities in radio and X-rays. Our sample includes 64 sources, consists of both bright AGNs and low-luminosity ones. We first find that, because of the similarity in the $L_{HX}/L_X$ distribution, the X-ray origin of radio-loud Seyferts may be the same to that of radio-quiet ones, where we attribute to the hot accretion flow (or similarly, the corona). We then investigate the connections between luminosities in radio and X-rays. Since our sample suffers a selection bias of a black hole mass $M_{BH}$ dependence on $L_X/L_{Edd}$, we focus on the correlation slope $xi_X$ between the radio (at 1.4 GHz) and X-ray luminosities in Eddington unit, i.e. $(L_R/L_{Edd})propto(L_X/L_{Edd})^{xi_X}$. We classify the sources according to various properties, i.e. 1) Seyfert classification, 2) radio loudness, and 3) radio morphology. We find that, despite these differences in classification, all the sources in our sample are consistent with a universal correlation slope $xi_X$, with $xi_X=0.77pm0.10$. This is unexpected, considering various possible radio emitters in radio-quiet systems. For the jet interpretation, our result may suggest a common/universal but to be identified jet launching mechanism among all the Seyfert galaxies, while properties like black hole spin and magnetic field strength only play secondary roles. We further estimate the jet production efficiency $eta_{jet}$ of Seyfert galaxies, which is $eta_{jet}approx1.9^{+0.9}_{-1.5}times10^{-4}$ on average. We also find that $eta_{jet}$ increases as the system goes fainter.
Variability in the X-rays is a key ingredient in understanding and unveiling active galactic nuclei (AGN) properties. In this band flux variations occur on short time scales (hours) as well as on larger times scales. While short time scale variability is often investigated in single source studies, only few works are able to explore flux variation on very long time scales.This work provides a statistical analysis of the AGN long term X-ray variability. We study variability on the largest time interval ever investigated for the 0.2-2 keV band, up to $sim 20$ years rest-frame for a sample of 220 sources. Moreover, we study variability for 2,700 quasars up to $sim 8$ years rest-frame in the same (soft) band.We build our source sample using the 3XMM serendipitous source catalogue data release 5, and data from ROSAT All Sky Survey Bright and Faint source catalogues. In order to select only AGN we use the Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasar catalogues data releases 7 and 12. Combining ROSAT and XMM-Newton observations, we investigate variability using the structure function analysis which describes the amount of variability as a function of the lag between the observations.Our work shows an increase of the structure function up to 20 years. We do not find evidence of a plateau in the structure function on these long time scales.The increase of the structure function at long time lags suggests that variability in the soft X-rays can be influenced by flux variations originated in the accretion disk or that they take place in a region large enough to justify variation on such long time scales.