Issue |
A&A
Volume 586, February 2016
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A28 | |
Number of page(s) | 7 | |
Section | Extragalactic astronomy | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201527575 | |
Published online | 22 January 2016 |
On the relation of optical obscuration and X-ray absorption in Seyfert galaxies
1 Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Postfach 1312, Gießenbachstr., 85741 Garching, Germany
e-mail: burtscher@mpe.mpg.de
2 Institute for Astronomy, Department of Physics, ETH Zürich, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 27, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland
3 School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, 69978 Tel Aviv, Israel
4 Instituto de Astrofísica, Facultad de Física, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 306, Santiago 22, Chile
5 Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
6 Joint Space-Science Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
7 Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics & Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, 69978 Ramat Aviv, Israel
Received: 16 October 2015
Accepted: 16 November 2015
The optical classification of a Seyfert galaxy and whether it is considered X-ray absorbed are often used interchangeably. There are many borderline cases, however, and also numerous examples where the optical and X-ray classifications appear to be in disagreement. In this article we revisit the relation between optical obscuration and X-ray absorption in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). We make use of our “dust colour” method to derive the optical obscuration AV, and consistently estimated X-ray absorbing columns using 0.3–150 keV spectral energy distributions. We also take into account the variable nature of the neutral gas column NH and derive the Seyfert subclasses of all our objects in a consistent way. We show in a sample of 25 local, hard-X-ray detected Seyfert galaxies (log LX/ (erg / s) ≈ 41.5−43.5) that there can actually be a good agreement between optical and X-ray classification. If Seyfert types 1.8 and 1.9 are considered unobscured, the threshold between X-ray unabsorbed and absorbed should be chosen at a column NH = 1022.3 cm-2 to be consistent with the optical classification. We find that NH is related to AV and that the NH/AV ratio is approximately Galactic or higher in all sources, as indicated previously. However, in several objects we also see that deviations from the Galactic ratio are only due to a variable X-ray column, showing that (1) deviations from the Galactic NH/AV can be simply explained by dust-free neutral gas within the broad-line region in some sources; that (2) the dust properties in AGNs can be similar to Galactic dust and that (3) the dust colour method is a robust way to estimate the optical extinction towards the sublimation radius in all but the most obscured AGNs.
Key words: galaxies: active / galaxies: nuclei / galaxies: Seyfert / dust, extinction
© ESO, 2016
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