English

On the emitting region of X-ray fluorescent lines around Compton-thick AGN

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2016-04-20 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

X-ray fluorescent lines are unique features of the reflection spectrum of the torus when irradiated by the central AGN. Their intrinsic line width can be used to probe the line-emitting region. Previous studies have focused on the Fe Ka line at 6.4 keV, which is the most prominent fluorescent line. These studies, however, are limited by the spectral resolution of currently available instruments, the best of which is 1860\sim1860 km s1^{-1} afforded by the Chandra High-Energy Grating (HEG). The HEG spectral resolution is improved by a factor of 4 at 1.74 keV, where the Si Ka line is located. We measured the FWHM of the Si Ka line for Circinus, Mrk 3, and NGC 1068, which are 570±240570\pm240, 730±320730\pm320, and 320±280320\pm280 km s1^{-1}, respectively. They are 353-5 times smaller than those measured with the Fe Ka line previously. It shows that the intrinsic widths of the Fe Ka line are most likely to be over-estimated. The measured widths of the Si Ka line put the line-emitting region outside the dust sublimation radius in these galaxies. It indicates that for Compton-thick AGN, the X-ray fluorescence material are likely to be the same as the dusty torus emitting in the infrared.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1603.03548,
  title  = {On the emitting region of X-ray fluorescent lines around Compton-thick AGN},
  author = {Jiren Liu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1603.03548},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

4 pages, 1 fig, to appear on MNRAS