XRISM Resolves the Circum-nuclear Environment of NGC 4945
Abstract
Compton-thick Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) represent one of the most elusive phases of massive black hole growth, yet are expected to contribute substantially to the Cosmic X-ray Background and the integrated growth of massive black holes. NGC 4945 is the closest Compton-thick AGN and amongst the brightest AGN in the hard X-ray sky, making it an important benchmark for more distant Compton-thick AGN. We present the first high-resolution X-ray spectral analysis of NGC 4945 using XRISM/Resolve. The entire 4-15 keV Resolve spectrum, including a strong Fe K doublet and weak Compton Shoulder, is well described by a de-coupled dual-obscurer model. The model features a low-covering-factor Compton-thick primary obscurer intersecting the line-of-sight that permits the rapidly variable, direct transmitted coronal continuum to dominate above 10 keV. A Compton-thin secondary reprocessor with a high covering factor dominates the reprocessed emission between 4-10 keV. Assuming that virial motion accounts for line broadening, the secondary reprocessor can exist at 0.12 pc, and could help explain the weak high-ionisation optical and infrared emission lines observed in NGC 4945. If such obscuration geometries are common among more distant and/or fainter Compton-thick AGN, our results suggest that simpler coupled X-ray spectral modelling could substantially over-estimate Compton-thick covering factors and under-estimate intrinsic X-ray luminosities.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2608.02294,
title = {XRISM Resolves the Circum-nuclear Environment of NGC 4945},
author = {Peter G. Boorman and Poshak Gandhi and Yoshihiro Ueda and Bert Vander Meulen and Kanta Fujiwara and Aoi Nakano and Johannes Buchner and Claudio Ricci and Kirpal Nandra and Daniel Stern and Almudena Alonso Herrero and Carolina Andonie and Franz E. Bauer and Stefano Bianchi and Murray Brightman and Francesca Civano and Richard I. Davies and Gulab Dewangan and Georgios Dimopoulos and Ismael García-Bernete and Santiago García-Burillo and Sebastian F. Hönig and Nancy A. Levenson and Andrea Merloni and Yuya Nakatani and Hirofumi Noda and Shoji Ogawa and Chris Packham and Simonetta Puccetti and Cristina Ramos Almeida and Marko Stalevski and Yuichi Terashima and Martin Ward and Satoshi Yamada},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2608.02294},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
Submitted to A&A Letters. Comments welcome