X-ray spectral shape variations in changing-look Seyfert galaxy SDSSJ155258+273728
Abstract
We analyze the X-ray, optical, and mid-infrared data of a "changing-look" Seyfert galaxy \sdssj15 at . Over a period of one decade (2009 - 2018), its broad H line intensity increased by a factor of 4. 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 0.18, 0.32 mag, respectively. Moreover, the absorption in X-rays is moderate and stable, i.e. , but the X-ray spectrum becomes harder in the 2014 \chandra\ bright state (i.e. photon index ) than that of the 2010 \suzaku\ low state (). 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}
}
Comments
Published in ApJL