English

NGC 7314: X-ray Study of the Evolving Accretion Properties

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2024-10-03 v1

Abstract

We present a comprehensive analysis of the timing and spectral properties of NGC 7314, a Seyfert 1.9 galaxy, using X-ray observations from {\it XMM-Newton}, {\it NuSTAR}, and {\it RXTE}/PCA. The timing analysis reveals significant variability across different energy bands, with fractional variability (Fvar_{\rm var}) values consistent with previous studies. The highly variable soft photons and comparatively less variable high energy photons imply different origins of these two types. The soft energy photons come from a hot corona near the center, while the high-energy photons are produced by inverse Compton scattering of these primary X-ray photons in a hot plasma away from the central region. The spectral analysis employs various models to characterize the emission components. The results indicate the presence of a soft energy bump, Fe Kα\alpha line emission, and a prominent reflection component. The long-term {\it RXTE}/PCA data analysis reveals temporal variations in the photon index (Γ\Gamma) and power-law flux, suggesting evolving emission properties over time. The signature of both broad and narrow Fe~Kα\alpha emission line features suggested the broad, variable one coming from the accretion disk (105\sim10^{-5}~pc), while the non-evolving narrow line can not be well constrained. The absorption feature could originate in a highly ionized region, possibly closer to the broad-line region (BLR). The evolution of the inner accretion properties indicates that NGC 7314 could be a potential changing-state active galactic nuclei.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2410.01328,
  title  = {NGC 7314: X-ray Study of the Evolving Accretion Properties},
  author = {Debjit Chatterjee and Arghajit Jana and A. Mangalam and Hsiang-Kuang Chang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.01328},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T19:04:50.899Z