English

X-ray Variability Study of Polar Scattered Seyfert 1 Galaxies

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2013-09-27 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

We study 12 Seyfert 1 galaxies with a high level of optical polarization. Optical light emerging from the innermost regions is predominantly scattered in a polar region above the central engine directly in our line of sight. These sources show characteristics of Seyfert 2 galaxies such as, e.g., polarized broad lines. The polarization signatures suggest a viewing angle of 45 degrees classifying them as intermediate Seyfert 1/2 types. The unified model predicts this line of sight to pass through the outer layer of the torus resulting in significant soft X-ray variability due to a strongly varying column density. The aim is to find evidence for this geometrical assumption in the spectral variability of all available historical observations of these sources by XMM-Newton and Swift.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1309.6674,
  title  = {X-ray Variability Study of Polar Scattered Seyfert 1 Galaxies},
  author = {Tobias Beuchert and Jörn Wilms and Matthias Kadler and Anna Lia Longinotti and Matteo Guainazzi and Giovanni Miniutti and Ignacio de la Calle},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1309.6674},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

Conference proceedings for the 10th INTEGRAL/BART Workshop on 22-25 April 2013, Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad), Czech Republic