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Register a new userAGN-host interaction in IC 5063. I. Large-scale X-ray morphology and spectral analysis
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We report the analysis of the deep (270 ks) X-ray Chandra data of one of the most radio-loud, Seyfert 2 galaxies in the nearby Universe (z=0.01135), IC 5063. The alignment of the radio structure with the galactic disk and ionized bi-cone, enables us to study the effects of both radio jet and nuclear irradiation on the interstellar medium (ISM). The nuclear and bi-cone spectra suggest a low photoionization phase mixed with a more ionized or thermal gas component, while the cross-cone spectrum is dominated by shocked and collisionally ionized gas emission. The clumpy morphology of the soft (<3 keV) X-ray emission along the jet trails, and the large (~2.4 kpc) filamentary structure perpendicular to the radio jets at softer energies (<1.5 keV), suggest a large contribution of the jet-ISM interaction to the circumnuclear gas emission. The hard X-ray continuum (>3 keV) and the Fe K-alpha 6.4 keV emission are both extended to kpc size along the bi-cone direction, suggesting an interaction of nuclear photons with dense clouds in the galaxy disk, as observed in other Compton Thick (CT) active nuclei. The north-west cone spectrum also exhibits an Fe XXV emission line, which appears spatially extended and spatially correlated with the most intense radio hot-spot, suggesting jet-ISM interaction.
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Binary active galactic nuclei (AGNs) provide clues to how gas-rich mergers trigger and fuel AGNs and how supermassive black hole (SMBH) pairs evolve in a gas-rich environment. While significant effort has been invested in their identification, the detailed properties of binary AGNs and their host galaxies are still poorly constrained. In a companion paper, we examined the nature of ionizing sources in the double nuclei of four kpc-scale binary AGNs with redshifts between 0.1~0.2. Here, we present their host galaxy morphology based on F336W (U-band) and F105W (Y-band) images taken by the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope. Our targets have double-peaked narrow emission lines and were confirmed to host binary AGNs with follow up observations. We find that kpc-scale binary AGNs occur in galaxy mergers with diverse morphological types. There are three major mergers with intermediate morphologies and a minor merger with a dominant disk component. We estimate the masses of the SMBHs from their host bulge stellar masses and obtain Eddington ratios for each AGN. Compared with a representative control sample drawn at the same redshift and stellar mass, the AGN luminosities and Eddington ratios of our binary AGNs are similar to those of single AGNs. The U-Y color maps indicate that clumpy star forming regions could significantly affect the X-ray detection of binary AGNs, e.g., the hardness ratio. Considering the weak X-ray emission in AGNs triggered in merger systems, we suggest that samples of X-ray selected AGNs may be biased against gas-rich mergers.
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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.
The biconical radiation pattern extending from an active galactic nucleus (AGN) may strongly photoionize the circumnuclear interstellar medium (ISM) and stimulate emission from the narrow line region (NLR). Observations of the NLR may provide clues to the structure of dense material that preferentially obscures the bicone at certain angles, and may reveal the presence of processes in the ISM tied to AGN accretion and feedback. Ground-based integral field units (IFUs) may study these processes via well-understood forbidden diagnostic lines such as [O III] and [S II], but scales of $sim10$s of pc remain challenging to spatially resolve at these wavelengths for all but the nearest AGN. We present recent narrow filter Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of diagnostic forbidden ([O III], [S II]) and Balmer (H$alpha$, H$beta$) lines in the NLR of IC 5063. This AGNs jet inclination into the plane of the galaxy provides an important laboratory for strong AGN-host interactions. We find evidence for a low-ionization loop which emits brightly in [S II] and [N II], and which may arise from plume-like hot outflows that ablate ISM from the galactic plane before escaping laterally. We also present spatially resolved Baldwin-Phillips-Terlevich diagnostic maps of the IC 5063 NLR. These maps suggest a sharp transition to lower-ionization states outside the jet path, and that such emission is dominated by $sim10-40$ pc clumps and filamentary structure at large (>>25{deg}) angles from the bicone axis. Such emission may arise from precursorless shocks when AGN outflows impact low-density hot plasma in the cross-cone.
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