English

Testing relativistic reflection and resolving outflows in PG 1211+143 with XMM-Newton and NuSTAR

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2016-11-15 v1

Abstract

We analyze the broad-band X-ray spectrum (0.3-50 keV) of the luminous Seyfert 1 / quasar PG 1211+143 - the archetypal source for high-velocity X-ray outflows - using near-simultaneous XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations. We compare pure relativistic reflection models with a model including the strong imprint of photoionized emission and absorption from a high-velocity wind (Pounds16a,16b), finding a spectral fit that extrapolates well over the higher photon energies covered by NuSTAR. Inclusion of the high S/N XMM-Newton spectrum provides much tighter constraints on the model parameters, with a much harder photon index / lower reflection fraction compared to that from the NuSTAR data alone. We show that pure relativistic reflection models are not able to account for the spectral complexity of PG 1211+143 and that wind absorption models are strongly required to match the data in both the soft X-ray and Fe K spectral regions. In confirming the significance of previously reported ionized absorption features, the new analysis provides a further demonstration of the power of combining the high throughput and resolution of long-look XMM-Newton observations with the unprecedented spectral coverage of NuSTAR.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1609.01674,
  title  = {Testing relativistic reflection and resolving outflows in PG 1211+143 with XMM-Newton and NuSTAR},
  author = {Andrew Lobban and Ken Pounds and Simon Vaughan and James Reeves},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.01674},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in ApJ; 9 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables