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Related papers: Physically motivated X-ray obscurer models

200 papers

A significant number of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are observed to be hidden behind dust and gas. The distribution of material around AGNs plays an important role in modeling the cosmic X-ray background (CXB), especially the fraction of…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-02-28 Raj Gohil , David R. Ballantyne

X-ray spectroscopy of heavily obscured Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) offers a unique opportunity to study the circum-nuclear environment of accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs). However, individual models describing the obscurer have…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-03-12 Kristína Kallová , Peter G. Boorman , Claudio Ricci

This review describes recent developments related to the unified model of active galactic nuclei (AGN). It focuses on new ideas about the origin and properties of the central obscurer (torus), and the connection with its surrounding. The…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-09-23 Hagai Netzer

We present results of a high-resolution soft X-ray (0.2-2 keV) spectroscopic study of a sample of 69 nearby obscured Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) observed with the Reflection Grating Spectrometer (RGS) on board XMM-Newton. This is the…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-11-26 Matteo Guainazzi , Stefano Bianchi

The circumnuclear material around Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) is one of the essential components of the obscuration-based unification model. However, our understanding of the circumnuclear material in terms of its geometrical shape,…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-04-27 Abhijit Kayal , Veeresh Singh , Claudio Ricci , N. P. S. Mithun , Santosh Vadawale , Gulab Dewangan , Poshak Gandhi

One of the key ingredients of the Unified Model of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) is the presence of a torus-like optically thick medium composed by dust and gas around the putative supermassive black hole. However, the structure, size and…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-05-12 L. Ballo , P. Severgnini , A. Moretti , R. Della Ceca , S. Andreon , A. Caccianiga , V. Braito , S. Campana , C. Vignali

Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) unification, which implies a large number of obscured AGN, can explain the optical, infrared and X-ray content of deep multiwavelength surveys. Here, we show that the same model also successfully explains the…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Ezequiel Treister , C. M. Urry

We report a new sample of obscured active galactic nuclei (AGNs) selected from the XMM serendipitous source and AKARI point-source catalogs. We match X-ray sources with infrared (18 and 90 micron) sources located at |b|>10 deg to create a…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-11-18 Yuichi Terashima , Yoshitaka Hirata , Hisamitsu Awaki , Shinki Oyabu , Poshak Gandhi , Yoshiki Toba , Hideo Matsuhara

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…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-02-03 Isaiah S. Cox , Núria Torres-Albà , Stefano Marchesi , Peter Boorman , Xiurui Zhao , Ross Silver , Marco Ajello , Indrani Pal

An integral part of the Unified Model for Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) is an axisymmetric obscuring medium, which is commonly depicted as a torus of gas and dust surrounding the central engine. However, a robust, dynamical model of the…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-04 S. K. Keating , J. E. Everett , S. C. Gallagher , R. P. Deo

We present the results of X-ray spectral analysis of 22 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with a small scattering fraction selected from the Second XMM-Newton Serendipitous Source Catalogue using hardness ratios. They are candidates of buried…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2014-11-20 Kazuhisa Noguchi , Yuichi Terashima , Hisamitsu Awaki

The diffuse cosmic X-ray background (CXB) is the sum of the emission of discrete sources, mostly massive black-holes accreting matter in active galactic nuclei (AGN). The CXB spectrum differs from the integration of the spectra of…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2016-05-11 Valentino Esposito , Roland Walter

Near-Eddington radiation from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) has significant dynamical influence on the surrounding dusty gas, plausibly furnishing AGNs with geometrically thick obscuration. We investigate this paradigm with radiative…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-08-21 Chi-Ho Chan , Julian H. Krolik

In Unification Models, Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are believed to be surrounded by an axisymmetric structure of dust and gas, which greatly influences their observed properties according to the direction from which they are observed. The…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-11 E. Ibar , P. Lira

X-ray observations provide a powerful tool to probe the central engines of active galactic nuclei (AGN). A hard X-ray continuum is produced from deep within the accretion flow onto the supermassive black hole, and all optically thick…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2019-08-14 C. Reynolds , Y. Ueda , H. Awaki , L. Gallo , P. Gandhi , Y. Haba , T. Kawamuro , S. LaMassa , A. Lohfink , C. Ricci , F. Tazaki , A. Zoghbi

X-ray emission detection in a galaxy is one of the efficient tools for selecting Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs). However, many X-ray-selected AGNs are not easily selected as AGNs by their optical emission. These galaxies, so-called optically…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-03-31 Itsna K. Fitriana , Takashi Murayama

This work discusses the broadband X-ray spectral analysis of 11 candidate heavily-obscured active galactic nuclei (AGN) selected based on their infrared and X-ray properties by a recently published machine learning algorithm. This paper is…

X-ray obscuration of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is considered in the context of ionized winds of stratified structure launched from accretion disks. We argue that a Compton-thick layer of a large-scale disk wind can obscure continuum…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-04-18 Keigo Fukumura , Missagh Mehdipour , Ehud Behar , Chris Shrader , Mauro Dadina , Demosthenes Kazanas , Stefano Marchesi , Francesco Tombesi

The location of the obscuring "torus" in an active galactic nucleus (AGN) is still an unresolved issue. The line widths of X-ray fluorescence lines originated from the torus, particularly Fe K$\alpha$, carry key information on the radii of…

The inevitable spread in properties of the toroidal obscuration of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) invalidates the widespread notion that type 1 and 2 AGNs are intrinsically the same objects, drawn randomly from the distribution of torus…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-04 Moshe Elitzur