English

On the Observational Difference Between the Accretion Disk-Corona Connections among Super- and Sub-Eddington Accreting Active Galactic Nuclei

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2021-04-07 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

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\alpha_{\rm OX}) and the monochromatic luminosity at 2500 A˚2500~\r{A} (L2500 A˚L_{\rm 2500~\r{A}}) for both the super- and sub-Eddington subsamples. The best-fit αOXL2500 A˚\alpha_{\rm OX}-L_{\rm 2500~\r{A}} 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\alpha_{\rm OX} on both the Eddington ratio (LBol/LEddL_{\rm Bol}/L_{\rm Edd}) and black hole mass (MBHM_{\rm BH}) parameters for our full sample. A multi-variate linear regression analysis yields αOX=0.13log(LBol/LEdd)0.10logMBH0.69\alpha_{\rm OX}=-0.13 {\rm log}(L_{\rm Bol}/L_{\rm Edd})-0.10 {\rm log}M_{\rm BH}-0.69, with a scatter similar to that of the αOXL2500 A˚\alpha_{\rm OX}-L_{\rm 2500~\r{A}} relation. The hard (rest-frame >2 keV>2\rm ~keV) X-ray photon index (Γ\Gamma) is strongly correlated with LBol/LEddL_{\rm Bol}/L_{\rm Edd} 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.

Keywords

Cite

@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