X-ray Evidence for Multiple Absorbing Structures in Seyfert Galaxies
Abstract
We have used X-ray spectra to measure attenuating columns in a large sample of Seyfert galaxies. Over 30 of these sources have resolved radio jets, allowing the relative orientation of the nucleus and host galaxy to be constrained. We have discovered that the distribution of absorbing columns is strongly correlated with the relative orientation of the Seyfert structures. This result is inconsistent with unification models including only a torus and is instead most readily explained if a second absorber is included: in addition to a Compton-thick, parsec-scale torus there would also be a larger-scale absorber with N_H < 10^{23} cm^{-2}. The second absorber is aligned with the host galactic plane while the torus is arbitrarily misaligned.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0411174,
title = {X-ray Evidence for Multiple Absorbing Structures in Seyfert Galaxies},
author = {Jonathan Gelbord and K. A. Weaver and T. Yaqoob},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0411174},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
2 pages, 1 figure, to appear in "Multiwavelength AGN Surveys" (Cozumel, December 8-12 2003), ed. R. Maiolino and R. Mujica, Singapore: World Scientific, 2004. Additional material may be found at http://space.mit.edu/home/jonathan/research.html