Related papers: The hard X-ray perspective on the soft X-ray exces…
We present optical and X-ray data for a sample of serendipitous XMM-Newton sources that are selected to have 0.5-2 keV vs 2-4.5 keV X-ray hardness ratios which are harder than the X-ray background. The sources have 2-4.5 keV X-ray flux >=…
As the brightest galaxy cluster in the X-ray sky, Perseus is an excellent target for studying the Intracluster Medium (ICM), but until recently, its active galactic nucleus (AGN) made studies of the diffuse emission near its center nearly…
We systematically analyse all publicly available XMM-Newton spectra of radio-quiet PG quasars. The soft X-ray excess in these objects is well modelled by an additional, cool, Compton scattering region. However, the remarkably constant…
It is widely believed that the primary X-ray emission of AGN is due to the Comptonisation of optical-UV photons from a hot electron corona, while the origin of the 'soft-excess' is still uncertain and matter of debate. A second…
Understanding the nature of the accretion disk, its interplay with the X-ray corona, and assessing black hole spin demographics are some open challenges in astrophysics. In this work, we examine the predictions of the standard $\alpha$-disk…
The cosmic X-ray background (CXB) is dominated by the obscured and unobscured coronal light of active galactic nuclei (AGN). At energies below 10 keV, the CXB can be well explained by models taking into account the known AGN and the…
Hard X-ray surveys are an important tool for the study of active galactic nuclei (AGN): they provide almost an unbiased view of absorption in the extragalactic population, allow the study of spectral features such as reflection and high…
We report the results obtained by a broad-band (0.5-500 keV) data analysis of narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 4748 observed with an XMM-Newton/PN, INTEGRAL/ISGRI and SWIFT/BAT telescopes. This galaxy has a soft X-ray excess that is typical…
The origin of the soft excess seen in many AGN below ~1 keV is still an unsolved problem. It is unlikely to represent a true continuum component as its characteristic 'temperature' shows a remarkable constancy over a wide range of AGN…
We discuss the spectral analysis of a sample of 63 Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) detected above a limiting flux of $S(8-24$ keV$)=7\times10^{-14}$ erg/s/cm$^2$ in the multi-tiered NuSTAR Extragalactic Survey program. The sources span a…
An interesting feature in active galactic nuclei (AGN) accreting at low rate is the weakness of the reflection features in their X-ray spectra, which can result from the gradual disappearance of the torus with decreasing accretion rates. It…
We discuss the origin of the soft X-ray excess seen in AGN. There are clear advantages to models where this arises from atomic processes in partially ionised material rather than where it is a true continuum component. However, current data…
A common model invoked to describe the X-ray spectra of active galaxies includes a relativistically blurred reflection component, which in some cases can be the dominant contributor to the received flux. Alternative interpretations are…
Recent evidence for a strong 'hard excess' of flux at energies > 20 keV in some Suzaku observations of type 1 Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) has motivated an exploratory study of the phenomenon in the local type 1 AGN population. We have…
We present a unification model for a clumpy obscurer in active galactic nuclei (AGN) and investigate the properties of the resulting X-ray spectrum. Our model is constructed to reproduce the column density distribution of the AGN population…
To constrain the origin of the soft X-ray excess phenomenon seen in many active galactic nuclei, the intensity-correlated spectral analysis, developed by Noda et al. (2011b) for Markarian 509, was applied to wide-band (0.5-45 keV) Suzaku…
XMM-Newton spectra of five red, 2MASS AGN, selected from a sample observed by Chandra to be relatively X-ray bright and to cover a range of hardness ratios, confirm the presence of substantial absorbing material in three sources with…
In this paper we examine the percentage of type 1 AGN which require the inclusion of a soft excess component and/or significant cold absorption in the modelling of their X-ray spectra obtained by XMM-Newton. We do this by simulating spectra…
We explore the origin of the strong soft X-ray excess in Narrow Line Seyfert 1 galaxies using spectral-timing information from a 120ks {\it XMM-Newton} observation of PG 1244+026. Spectral fitting alone cannot distinguish between a true…
Correlated variability between coronal X-rays and disc optical/UV photons provides a very useful diagnostic of the interplay between the different regions around an active galactic nucleus (AGN) and how they interact. AGN that reveal strong…