The soft X-ray polarization in obscured AGN
Abstract
The soft X-ray emission in obscured active galactic nuclei (AGN) is dominated by emission lines, produced in a gas photoionized by the nuclear continuum and likely spatially coincident with the optical narrow line region (NLR). However, a fraction of the observed soft X-ray flux appears like a featureless power law continuum. If the continuum underlying the soft X-ray emission lines is due to Thomson scattering of the nuclear radiation, it should be very highly polarized. We calculated the expected amount of polarization assuming a simple conical geometry for the NLR, combining these results with the observed fraction of the reflected continuum in bright obscured AGN.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0905.4845,
title = {The soft X-ray polarization in obscured AGN},
author = {Stefano Bianchi and Giorgio Matt and Francesco Tamborra and Marco Chiaberge and Matteo Guainazzi and Andrea Marinucci},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0905.4845},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
6 pages, 3 figures, to appear in 'X-ray Polarimetry: A New Window in Astrophysics', edited by R. Bellazzini, E. Costa, G. Matt and G. Tagliaferri