X-Ray Evidence for Multiple Absorbing Structures in Seyfert Nuclei
Abstract
We have discovered a correlation between the X-ray absorbing column densities within Seyfert galaxies and the relative alignment between the central engines and their host galactic disks. This correlation carries several implications for Seyfert unification models. (1) In addition to small-scale circumnuclear absorbers, there are absorbing systems associated with the host galactic plane that are capable of obscuring the broad line region emission. (2) The misalignment between the central engine axis and that of the host galaxy arises on intermediate scales between these absorbers. (3) The small-scale absorbers have systematically higher column densities and may be universally Compton-thick.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0511056,
title = {X-Ray Evidence for Multiple Absorbing Structures in Seyfert Nuclei},
author = {Jonathan M. Gelbord and Kimberly A. Weaver and Tahir Yaqoob},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0511056},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
2 pages, 2 figures; to appear in the proceedings of "The X-ray Universe 2005" conference, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Madrid, Spain, 26-30 September 2005; related work, including the poster from the conference, may be found at http://space.mit.edu/home/jonathan/research.html