We present a systematic X-ray and multiwavelength study of a sample of 47 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with reverberation-mapping measurements. This sample includes 21 super-Eddington accreting AGNs and 26 sub-Eddington accreting AGNs. Using high-state observations with simultaneous X-ray and UV/optical measurements, we investigate whether super-Eddington accreting AGNs exhibit different accretion disk-corona connections compared to sub-Eddington accreting AGNs. We find tight correlations between the X-ray-to-UV/optical spectral slope parameter (αOX) and the monochromatic luminosity at 2500A˚ (L2500A˚) for both the super- and sub-Eddington subsamples. The best-fit αOX−L2500A˚ relations are consistent overall, indicating that super-Eddington accreting AGNs are not particularly X-ray weak in general compared to sub-Eddington accreting AGNs. We find dependences of αOX on both the Eddington ratio (LBol/LEdd) and black hole mass (MBH) parameters for our full sample. A multi-variate linear regression analysis yields αOX=−0.13log(LBol/LEdd)−0.10logMBH−0.69, with a scatter similar to that of the αOX−L2500A˚ relation. The hard (rest-frame >2keV) X-ray photon index (Γ) is strongly correlated with LBol/LEdd for the full sample and the super-Eddington subsample, but these two parameters are not significantly correlated for the sub-Eddington subsample. A fraction of super-Eddington accreting AGNs show strong X-ray variability, probably due to small-scale gas absorption, and we highlight the importance of employing high-state (intrinsic) X-ray radiation to study the accretion disk-corona connections in AGNs.
@article{arxiv.2102.02832,
title = {On the Observational Difference Between the Accretion Disk-Corona Connections among Super- and Sub-Eddington Accreting Active Galactic Nuclei},
author = {Hezhen Liu and B. Luo and W. N. Brandt and Michael S. Brotherton and S. C. Gallagher and Q. Ni and Ohad Shemmer and J. D. Timlin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.02832},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
31 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ