English

X-ray spectral shape variations in changing-look Seyfert galaxy SDSSJ155258+273728

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2020-02-28 v2 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

We analyze the X-ray, optical, and mid-infrared data of a "changing-look" Seyfert galaxy \sdssj15 at z0.086z\simeq0.086. Over a period of one decade (2009 - 2018), its broad Hα\alpha line intensity increased by a factor of \sim4. Meanwhile, the X-ray emission in 2014 as observed by \chandra\ was about five times brighter than that in 2010 by {\it Suzaku}, and the corresponding emissions in V-band, mid-infrared W1 band brighten by \sim 0.18, 0.32 mag, respectively. Moreover, the absorption in X-rays is moderate and stable, i.e. NH1021cm2{\rm N_{H}}\sim 10^{21} {\rm cm^{-2}}, but the X-ray spectrum becomes harder in the 2014 \chandra\ bright state (i.e. photon index Γ=1.520.06+0.06\Gamma = 1.52^{+0.06}_{-0.06}) than that of the 2010 \suzaku\ low state (Γ=2.030.21+0.22\Gamma=2.03^{+0.22}_{-0.21}). With an Eddington ratio being lower than a few percent, the inner region of the accretion disk in \sdssj15\ is likely a hot accretion flow. We then compile from literature the X-ray data of "changing-look" AGNs, and find that they generally follow the well-established "V"-shaped correlation in AGNs, that is, above a critical turn-over luminosity the X-ray spectra soften with the increasing luminosity, and below that luminosity the trend is reversed in a way of "harder when brighter". This presents a direct evidence that CL-AGNs have distinctive changes in not only the optical spectral type, but also the X-ray spectral shape. The similarity in the X-ray spectral evolution between CL-AGNs and black hole X-ray binaries indicates that the observed CL-AGNs phenomena may relate to the state transition in accretion physics.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1912.00164,
  title  = {X-ray spectral shape variations in changing-look Seyfert galaxy SDSSJ155258+273728},
  author = {Yanli Ai and Liming Dou and Chenwei Yang and Luming Sun and Fu-Guo Xie and Su Yao and Xue-Bing Wu and Tinggui Wang and Xinwen Shu and Ning Jiang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1912.00164},
  year   = {2020}
}

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Published in ApJL