Related papers: Is the soft excess in AGN real?
A soft X-ray excess above the 2-10 keV power law extrapolation is generally observed in AGN X-ray spectra. Presently there are two competitive models to explain it: blurred ionized reflection and warm Comptonisation. In the latter case,…
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are the most luminous persistent objects in the universe. An excess of X-ray emission below about 2 keV, called soft-excess, is very common in Type 1 AGN spectra. The origin of this feature remains debated.…
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…
The soft X-ray excess in the spectra of active galactic nuclei is characterized by similar electron temperatures of 0.1 -- 0.3 keV and similar photon indices around 2.2 -- 3, if fitted with inverse Comptonization. It remains a puzzle why…
The narrow line QSO PG1211+143 has been a focus of recent attempts to understand the soft excess in AGN, while the 2001 XMM-Newton observation of this luminous AGN also provided evidence for a massive and energetic outflow. Here we consider…
(abridged) The soft excess seen in the X-ray spectra of many high mass accretion rate AGN can be well modelled by reflection from a partially ionised accretion disc. However, the derived parameters are often extreme, both in terms of the…
We report the results from a recent 133 ks XMM-Newton observation of a highly super-Eddington narrow-line Type-1 QSO RX J0439.6-5311. This source has one of the steepest AGN hard X-ray slopes, in addition to a prominent and smooth soft…
We present the long-term X-ray spectral and temporal analysis of a 'bare-type AGN' Ark 120. We consider the observations from XMM-Newton, Suzaku, Swift, and NuSTAR from 2003 to 2018. The spectral properties of this source are studied using…
When an AGN is obscured, the warm reflecting gas nearby can be seen by a combination of bremsstrahlung, intrinsic line emission, and reflection of the nuclear continuum, both by electron scattering and by resonance line scattering.…
The soft excess is a significant emission component in the Soft (<1 keV) X-ray spectra of many AGN. It has been explained by disk reflection, a warm corona and other models. Understanding its origin is crucial for the energy budget of AGN…
The 2-10 keV continuum of AGN is generally well represented by a single power law. However, at smaller energies the continuum displays an excess with respect to the extrapolation of this power law, called the ''soft X-ray excess''. Until…
We predict that the UV bump spectrum of quasars extends into the soft X-ray range with a steep power law. For radio-louds, the spectral index is alpha_s ~ 1.7 (S_nu = S_o nu^-alpha), and for radio-quiets it should be somewhat steeper…
We analyse the spectra of the archival XMM-Newton data of the Seyfert 1 AGN Zw 229.015 in the energy range $0.3 - 10.0$ keV. When fitted with a simple power-law, the spectrum shows signatures of weak soft excess below 1.0 keV. We find that…
X-ray reflection generates much of the spectral complexity in the X-ray spectra of AGN. It is argued that strong relativistic blurring of the reflection spectrum should commonly be expected from objects accreting at a high Eddington rate.…
In a ~ 20 ksec XMM-Newton observation the X-ray transient radio-quiet quasar PG 0844+349 was found in a historically high state compared to previous X-ray observations. The quasar showed a featureless spectrum with a strong soft excess over…
We undertake a spectral study of a sample of bright X-ray sources taken from six XMM-Newton fields at high galactic latitudes, where AGN are the most populous class. These six fields were chosen such that the observation had an exposure…
We study the X-ray properties of a sample of 14 optically-selected low-mass AGN whose masses lie within the range 1E5 -2E6 M(solar) with XMM-Newton. Only six of these low-mass AGN have previously been studied with sufficient quality X-ray…
The origin of the soft X-ray excess in AGN has been a mystery ever since its discovery. We present how the time variability of this spectral component can point towards its origin. Using the powerful technique of multi-epoch fitting, we…
XMM Newton observations of five high-luminosity radio-quiet QSOs (Q 0144-3938, UM 269, PG 1634+706, SBS 0909+532 and PG 1247+267) are presented. Spectral energy distributions were calculated from the XMM-Newton EPIC (European Photon Imaging…
Probing the physics of the accretion flow around active galactic nuclei (AGN) is crucial to understanding their emission mechanisms as well as being able to constrain the geometrical and variability properties of the different regions…