Breaking the rules at z ≃ 0.45: The rebel case of RBS 1055

¹ ASI – Italian Space Agency, Via del Politecnico snc, 00133 Rome, Italy
e-mail: andrea.marinucci@asi.it
² INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Via Frascati 33, 00040 Monte Porzio Catone, Roma, Italy
³ INAF – Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica cosmica Milano, Via A. Corti 12, 20133 Milano, Italy
⁴ Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Via della Vasca Navale 84, 00146 Roma, Italy
⁵ ESA – European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), Keplerlaan 1, 2201 AZ Noordwijk, The Netherlands
⁶ INAF – Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio, Via P. Gobetti 93/3, 40129 Bologna, Italy
⁷ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, MS 169-224, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
⁸ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia “Augusto Righi”, Università degli Studi di Bologna, Via P. Gobetti 93/2, 40129 Bologna, Italy

Received: 15 June 2022
Accepted: 1 September 2022

Abstract

Context. Very luminous quasars are unique sources for studying the circumnuclear environment around supermassive black holes. Several components contribute to the overall X-ray spectral shape of active galactic nuclei (AGN). The hot (kT_e = 50 − 100 keV) and warm (kT_e = 0.1 − 1 keV) coronae are responsible for the hard and soft power-law continua, while the circumnuclear toroidal reflector accounts for the Fe Kα emission line and the associated Compton hump. However, all these spectral features are simultaneously observed only in a handful of sources above z ≃ 0.1.

Aims. An ideal astrophysical laboratory for this investigation is the quasar RBS 1055, at z ≃ 0.45. With a luminosity L_{2 − 10 keV} = 2 × 10⁴⁵ erg s⁻¹, it is the brightest radio-quiet quasar from the ROSAT Bright Survey. Despite the known anti-correlation between the equivalent width (EW) of the narrow neutral Fe Kα line and L_{2 − 10 keV}, an intense Fe Kα was previously detected for this source.

Methods. We report findings based on a long (250 ks) NuSTAR observation performed in March 2021 and archival XMM-Newton pointings (185 ks) taken in July 2014. We also analyzed an optical spectrum of the source taken with the Double Spectrograph at the Palomar Observatory quasi-simultaneously to the NuSTAR observations.

Results. We find that the two-corona model, in which a warm and hot corona coexist, well reproduces the broad band spectrum of RBS 1055, with temperatures kT_e = 0.12_−0.03^+0.08 keV, kT_e = 30₋₁₀⁺⁴⁰ keV and Thomson optical depths τ = 30₋₁₀⁺¹⁵ and τ = 3.0_−1.4^+1.0 for the former and the latter component, respectively. We confirm the presence of an intense Fe Kα emission line (EW = 55 ± 6 eV) and find, when a toroidal model is considered for reproducing the Compton reflection, a Compton-thin solution with N_H = (3.2_−0.8^+0.9) × 10²³ cm⁻² for the circumnuclear reflector. A detailed analysis of the optical spectrum reveals a likely peculiar configuration of our line of sight with respect to the nucleus, and the presence of a broad [O III] component tracing outflows in the Narrow Line Region, with a velocity shift v = 1500 ± 100 km s⁻¹, leading to a mass outflow rate Ṁ_out = 25.4 ±1.5 M_⊙ yr⁻¹ and outflow kinetic power normalized by the bolometric luminosity Ē_kin/L_Bol ∼ 0.33%. We estimate the BH mass to be in the range 2.8 × 10⁸–1.2 × 10⁹ M_⊙, according to different broad line region emission lines, with an average value of ⟨M_BH⟩ = 6.5 × 10⁸ M_⊙.

Conclusions. With an Fe Kα that is 3σ above the value predicted from the EW–L_{2 − 10 keV} relation and an extreme source brightness at 2 keV (a factor 10−15 higher than the one expected from the optical/UV), we can confirm that RBS 1055 is an outlier in the X-rays compared to other objects in the same luminosity and redshift range.