Multiwavelength campaign on Mrk 509

XVI. Continued HST/COS monitoring of the far-ultraviolet spectrum^⋆

¹ Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
e-mail: gak@stsci.edu
² Department of Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
³ The Pennsylvania State University, Department of Physics, 76 University Drive, Hazleton, PA 18202, USA
⁴ SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Sorbonnelaan 2, 3584 CA Utrecht, The Netherlands
⁵ Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
⁶ Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Via della Vasca Navale 84, 00146 Roma, Italy
⁷ INAF-IASF Bologna, Via Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy
⁸ European Space Astronomy Centre, PO Box 78, 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain
⁹ Department of Astronomy, University of Geneva, 16 Ch. d’Ecogia, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland
¹⁰ Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, 38000 Grenoble, France
¹¹ INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Via E. Bianchi 46, 23807 Merate (LC), Italy

Received: 8 December 2018
Accepted: 22 January 2019

Abstract

Aims. To elucidate the location, physical conditions, mass outflow rate, and kinetic luminosity of the outflow from the active nucleus of the Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 509, we used coordinated UV and X-ray spectral observations in 2012 to follow up our lengthier campaign conducted in 2009.

Methods. We observed Mrk 509 with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) on 2012-09-03 and 2012-10-11 coordinated with X-ray observations using the High Energy Transmission Grating on the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Our far-ultraviolet spectra used grating G140L on COS to cover wavelengths from 920–2000 Å at a resolving power of ∼2000, and gratings G130M and G160M to cover 1160–1750 Å at a resolving power of ∼15, 000.

Results. We detect variability in the blueshifted UV absorption lines on timescales spanning 3–12 years. The inferred densities in the absorbing gas are greater than log n cm⁻³ ∼ 3. For ionization parameters ranging over log U = −1.5 to −0.2, we constrain the distances of the absorbers to be closer than 220 pc to the active nucleus.

Conclusions. The impact on the host galaxy appears to be confined to the nuclear region.