Exploring the Geometry of Circumnuclear Material in Active Galactic Nuclei Through X-ray Spectroscopy

Exploring the Geometry of Circumnuclear Material in Active Galactic Nuclei Through X-ray Spectroscopy
Author: Elizabeth Scirocco Rivers
Publisher:
Total Pages: 127
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN: 9781267835994

I have studied the X-ray spectral properties of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in order to gain a better understanding of the nature of the circumnuclear material surrounding the central black hole in these objects. From the RXTE archive I constructed two survey samples of broad band X-ray spectra. The first was a bright sample of 23 AGN that had high quality spectra up to at least 100 keV, which provided constraints on the high energy rollover expected by models of inverse Comptonization of low energy photons. The average lower limit to E/roll was ~225 keV for the majority of objects, implying a coronal electron temperature of kBTe & ge;75 keV for these models. The second sample was an expanded survey of ~100 AGN for which spectral parameters could be well-determined. I compared Fe line equivalent widths with measured Compton reflection hump strengths and found that on average ~40% of the Fe line emission comes from reflection off Compton-thick material, with the remainder likely arising in isotropic emission from Compton-thin gas. In the full sample, the distributions of photon indices for Seyfert 1's and 2's were consistent with the idea that Seyferts share a common central engine, however the distributions of Compton reflection hump strengths did not support the classical picture of absorption by a torus and reflection off a Compton-thick disk with type depending only on inclination angle. I have concluded that a more complex reflecting geometry such as a combined disk and torus or clumpy torus is likely a more accurate picture of the Compton-thick material. I have performed additional analyses of individual objects. An occultation event in Cen A, discovered through RXTE monitoring, revealed the clumpy nature of its torus and placed constraints on the amount of material in the vicinity of the black hole in this object. A Suzaku long-look observation of MCG-2-58-22 provided constraints on the location of Fe line emitting material to & ge;1200 R/S, likely associated with the torus which was successfully modeled by the MYTorus reflection model. A Suzaku observation of Mkn 590 revealed a disappearing soft excess, possibly providing evidence that the soft excess is associated with thermal disk emission.

X-ray Studies of the Central Engine in Active Galactic Nuclei with Suzaku

X-ray Studies of the Central Engine in Active Galactic Nuclei with Suzaku
Author: Hirofumi Noda
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2015-12-07
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9812877215

The aim of this research was to use the X-ray satellite Suzaku to establish a picture of a central engine that effectively converts the gravitational energy of accreting matter onto the supermassive black hole to a huge amount of radiation in an active galactic nucleus. Although the engine is known to consist of a Comptonizing corona and an accretion disk, its image has remained unclear because primary emissions, coming directly from the engine, cannot be identified in X-ray spectra without models. The book describes a technique of time variability assisted spectral decomposition to model-independently examine X-ray signals, and how this was applied to the Suzaku archive data of active galactic nuclei. As a result, at least three distinct primary X-ray components have been discovered in an X-ray from an active galactic nucleus, presumably indicating a novel picture that the engine is composed of multiple coronae with different physical properties in an accretion flow. Furthermore, the determination of the spectral shapes of the primary X-rays has a significant impact on estimations of black hole spins, because it is essential to quantify reprocessed X-ray spectra. The successful model-independent decomposition of X-ray spectral components with flux variations of active galactic nuclei is likely to be effective in future data analyses from the soon-to-be-launched Japanese X-ray satellite ASTRO-H, which is capable of achieving unprecedented fine spectros copy and broad energy band coverage.

X-ray and Multiwavelength Studies of Active Galactic Nuclei from Large Area Sky Surveys

X-ray and Multiwavelength Studies of Active Galactic Nuclei from Large Area Sky Surveys
Author: Jianfeng Wu
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN:

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are ideal laboratories for fundamental physics and cosmology. Our knowledge of AGNs has been greatly advanced during the past decades thanks to the unprecedentedly powerful X-ray missions (e.g., Chandra, XMM-Newton, and Swift) and modern large area surveys in the optical/UV band (e.g., the Sloan Digital Sky Survey; SDSS). Studies on the relation between multiwavelength properties of AGNs can reveal the physics of AGN accretion process. In this dissertation, I mainly study the relation between the AGN X-ray properties and their optical/UV spectral properties on emission lines, absorption lines and continuum. I also investigate the X-ray properties of AGNs with extreme radio properties in the early Universe. (1) We studied the X-ray properties of a class of radio-quiet SDSS quasars with weak broad emission lines (weak-line quasars; WLQs). Although the WLQ population shows diverse X-ray properties, they have an excess of X-ray weak sources. Besides having weak emission lines, the X-ray weak WLQs generally show other unusual UV emission-line properties similar to those of the remarkable X-ray weak quasar PHL 1811 (e.g., highly blueshifted C IV lines, weak semi-forbidden lines, and strong UV Fe emission). They are classified as "PHL 1811 analogs". The X-ray weak WLQs also show a harder X-ray spectrum, while the WLQ with normal X-ray brightness have similar X-ray spectral properties to those of typical quasars. We proposed an AGN geometry which can potentially unify the X-ray weak and X-ray normal WLQ populations via orientation effect. The infrared-to-UV spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of X-ray weak and X-ray normal WLQs have consistent SEDs with those for typical quasars, which disfavors the BL Lac-like scenario for the nature of these quasars (Chapters 2 and 3). (2) We have led the best X-ray study to date on quasars with intermediate-width absorption lines (mini-BALs). We found the X-ray brightness of mini-BAL quasars are more close to those of typical quasars than to BAL quasars (which are generally X-ray weak), showing they do not have substantial X-ray absorption. Strong correlations were found between the X-ray brightness and UV absorption parameters, e.g., the absorption strength and maximum outflow velocity. We further proposed new UV absorption parameters which better correlate with the X-ray properties than existing parameters do (Chapter 4). (3) We studied the relation between the optical/UV luminosity and X-ray luminosity (quantified by the alpha_ox parameter) for the most-luminous quasars over a wide range of redshifts. Our correlation analyses provide better constraints on the alpha_ox-UV luminosity correlation. We have also verified that the alpha_ox parameter does not significantly evolve with redshift. We provide the individual and composite mid-infrared-to-UV SEDs for the most-luminous quasars. (Chapter 5). (4) We presented the X-ray and multiwavelength properties of the highly radio-loud quasars (HRLQs) at z > 4. Our HRLQs show a significant enhancement of X-ray emission over those HRLQs at lower redshift with similar optical/UV and radio luminosities, suggesting that the jet-linked X-ray emission mechanism in the early universe may differ from that in the more evolved universe. The optical/UV emission-line strength of RLQs are correlated with radio loudness, but not with relative X-ray brightness. Our HRLQs generally follow the anti-correlation between radio loudness and X-ray power-law photon index. We also studied the broad-band SEDs of HRLQs. Some HRLQs have an excess of mid-infrared emission which may originate from the jet synchrotron emission. None of our z > 4 HRLQs is detected by the Fermi LAT two-year survey (Chapter 6).

Probing the Geometry and Physics of the Emission Region in Active Galactic Nuclei Using Hard X-ray & Gamma-ray Observations

Probing the Geometry and Physics of the Emission Region in Active Galactic Nuclei Using Hard X-ray & Gamma-ray Observations
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 22
Release: 2010
Genre:
ISBN:

The X-ray spectra of (almost equal to)200 AGN collected from Swift-BAT were analyzed to test the Unified Model for AGN. Specifically, the photon indices, high energy cutoffs, and reflection components of Sy1 and Sy2 were compared. Under the Unified Model, the photon indices and reflection components for Sy1 should be larger than Sy2 and the high energy cutoffs should be the same. Fitting a simple power law model to the sample spectra proved to be insufficient. The PEXRAV model fit the spectra of the Sy1 and Sy2 significantly better, indicating that a reflection component and/or high energy cutoff exists as the Unified Model expects. Using both the simple power law and PEXRAV models it was concluded that in the population studied, Sy1 had a larger photon index than Sy2, as expected by the Unified Model. For Sy1 and Sy2, the reflection components were found to be compatible, but given the large errors, this finding cannot be said to be evidence against the Unified Model. However, it was concluded that Sy1 and Sy2 have different high energy cutoffs, which is unexpected under the Unified Model.

Examining the Role of the Compton-thick, X-ray Reprocessor in Type 1 Active Galactic Nuclei

Examining the Role of the Compton-thick, X-ray Reprocessor in Type 1 Active Galactic Nuclei
Author: Malachi M Tatum
Publisher:
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2013
Genre:
ISBN:

Studies have indicated that black holes and their host galaxies must co-evolve, although the mechanism linking the two is not yet clear. X-ray observations of the actively accreting systems (active galactic nuclei, hereafter AGNs) over a valuable probe of conditions in the inner environs of the supermassive black hole, as X-ray production within these systems comprises a significant fraction (5%-40%) of the bolometric luminosity and originates close to the nucleus. Detailed spectroscopy in this bandpass has established that the inner environs comprise multiple X-ray absorbing zones with column densities extending into the Compton-thick regime (NH > 1024\super atoms cmsuper-2). Compton-thick absorbers are known to have outflowing velocities up to 0.3c. The kinetic energy of oufltowing material with velocities > 0.1c may possibly be comparable to the gravitational binding energy of the stellar bulge and serve as a link between the black hole and the host galaxy. In addition, weak outflows may have a signicant effect on star formation in the host galaxy.

The NuSTAR View of Nearby Compton-thick Active Galactic Nuclei

The NuSTAR View of Nearby Compton-thick Active Galactic Nuclei
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2014
Genre:
ISBN:

We present X-ray spectral analyses for three Seyfert 2 active galactic nuclei, NGC 424, NGC 1320, and IC 2560, observed by NuSTAR in the 3-79 keV band. The high quality hard X-ray spectra allow detailed modeling of the Compton reflection component for the first time in these sources. Using quasi-simultaneous NuSTAR and Swift/XRT data, as well as archival XMM-Newton data, we find that all three nuclei are obscured by Compton-thick material with column densities in excess of ̃5 x 1024 cm-2, and that their X-ray spectra above 3 keV are dominated by reflection of the intrinsic continuum on Compton-thick material. Due to the very high obscuration, absorbed intrinsic continuum components are not formally required by the data in any of the sources. We constrain the intrinsic photon indices and the column density of the reflecting medium through the shape of the reflection spectra. Using archival multi-wavelength data we recover the intrinsic X-ray luminosities consistent with the broadband spectral energy distributions. Our results are consistent with the reflecting medium being an edge-on clumpy torus with a relatively large global covering factor and overall reflection efficiency of the order of 1%. Given the unambiguous confirmation of the Compton-thick nature of the sources, we investigate whether similar sources are likely to be missed by commonly used selection criteria for Compton-thick AGN, and explore the possibility of finding their high-redshift counterparts.

Active Galactic Nuclei Studies in Cosmic X-ray Survey Fields

Active Galactic Nuclei Studies in Cosmic X-ray Survey Fields
Author: Qingling Ni
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2021
Genre:
ISBN:

X-ray surveys are an effective way to study growing supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galaxy centers, as actively accreting SMBHs manifest themselves as active galactic nuclei (AGN) that can be observed in the X-ray in most cases. Through studying AGNs in X-ray survey fields that have extensive multiwavelength data coverage, we can probe how SMBH growth links with their host galaxies over cosmic history. Previously, researchers mainly linked SMBH growth with stellar mass (M⋆) or star formation rate (SFR). In this dissertation, we utilize morphological information to show that among star-forming (SF) galaxies, long-term average SMBH accretion rate (BHAR) relates to host-galaxy compactness (Chapter 2). We found that the relation between BHAR and host-galaxy compactness is more fundamental than the relation between BHAR and M⋆ or SFR (Chapter 3). This dissertation also provides key results from the XMM-Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey (XMM-SERVS), which will benefit studies of SMBH growth in the next decade with a large sample of AGNs that have superb multiwavelength data. The detection of X-ray point sources in two of the XMM-SERVS survey fields is presented in Chapter 4. In Chapter 5, multiwavelength counterpart identification, photometric-redshift calculation, and source classification for X-ray sources in the XMM-SERVS survey fields are presented; most of the X-ray point-like sources detected are classified as AGNs, showing SMBH growth over the full range of cosmic environments. A Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) forced-photometry catalog that provides optical coverage for one of the XMM-SERVS survey fields is presented in Chapter 6. Apart from these works that focus on "Active Galactic Nuclei Studies in Cosmic X-ray Survey Fields", this dissertation also includes my other two first-author works in the appendices, where X-ray observational studies of weak-line quasars (WLQs) are presented. By studying these quasars with exceptional spectroscopic properties, we found good supporting evidence for optically thick inner accretion disks among quasars with high Eddington ratios.