Is HE 0436-4717 Anemic? A deep look at a bare Seyfert 1 galaxy

A multi-epoch, multi-instrument analysis of the Seyfert 1 galaxy HE 0436-4717 is conducted using optical to X-ray data from XMM-Newton and Swift (including the BAT). Fitting of the UV-to-X-ray spectral energy distribution shows little evidence of extinction and the X-ray spectral analysis does not confirm previous reports of deep absorption edges from OVIII. HE 0436-4717 is a "bare" Seyfert with negligible line-of-sight absorption making it ideal to study the central X-ray emitting region. Three scenarios were considered to describe the X-ray data: partial covering absorption, blurred reflection, and soft Comptonization. All three interpretations describe the 0.5-10.0 keV spectra well. Extrapolating the models to 100 keV results in poorer fits for the the partial covering model. When also considering the rapid variability during one of the XMM-Newton observations, the blurred reflection model appears to describe all the observations in the most self-consistent manner. If adopted, the blurred reflection model requires a very low iron abundance in HE 0436-4717. We consider the possibilities that this is an artifact of the fitting process, but it appears possible that it is intrinsic to the object.Comment: 7 tables, 11 figures, 16 pages; accepted for publication in MNRAS 17 Feb. 201

A Killing tensor for higher dimensional Kerr-AdS black holes with NUT charge

In this paper, we study the recently discovered family of higher dimensional Kerr-AdS black holes with an extra NUT-like parameter. We show that the inverse metric is additively separable after multiplication by a simple function. This allows us to separate the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, showing that geodesic motion is integrable on this background. The separation of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation is intimately linked to the existence of an irreducible Killing tensor, which provides an extra constant of motion. We also demonstrate that the Klein-Gordon equation for this background is separable.Comment: LaTeX, 14 pages. v2: Typo corrected and equation added. v3: Reference added, introduction expanded, published versio

Three AGN Close To The Effective Eddington Limit

The Effective Eddington Limit for dusty gas surrounding AGN is lower than the canonical Eddington limit for hydrogen gas. Previous results from the Swift/BAT 9-month catalogue suggested that in the overwhelming majority of local AGN, the dusty absorbing gas is below this Effective Eddington limit, implying that radiation pressure is insufficient to blow away the absorbing clouds. We present an analysis of three objects from that sample which were found to be close to the Effective Eddington limit (NGC454, 2MASX J03565655-4041453 and XSS J05054-2348), using newly obtained XMM-Newton data. We use the X-ray data to better constrain the absorbing column density, and supplement them with XMM optical monitor (OM) data, infrared Spitzer and Herschel data where available to construct a broad-band spectral energy distribution to estimate refined bolometric luminosities and Eddington ratios for these three objects. The new XMM-Newton observations show all three objects moving away from the region expected for short-lived absorption in the N_H-\lambda_{Edd} plane into the `long-lived absorption' region. We find our conclusions robust to different methods for estimating the bolometric luminosity and Eddington ratio. Interestingly, 2MASX J03565655-4041453 and XSS J05054-2348 now exhibit complex X-ray spectra, at variance with previous analyses of their Swift/XRT data. We find evidence for absorption variability in NGC 454 and 2MASX J03565655-4041453, perhaps implying that although the radiation pressure from the central engine is insufficient to cause clearly detectable outflows, it may cause absorption variations over longer timescales. However, more robust black hole mass estimates would improve the accuracy of the Eddington ratio estimates for these objects.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA

Properties of AGN coronae in the NuSTAR era

The focussing optics of NuSTAR have enabled high signal-to-noise spectra to be obtained from many X-ray bright Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and Galactic Black Hole Binaries (BHB). Spectral modelling then allows robust characterization of the spectral index and upper energy cutoff of the coronal power-law continuum, after accounting for reflection and absorption effects. Spectral-timing studies, such as reverberation and broad iron line fitting, of these sources yield coronal sizes, often showing them to be small and in the range of 3 to 10 gravitational radii in size. Our results indicate that coronae are hot and radiatively compact, lying close to the boundary of the region in the compactness - temperature diagram which is forbidden due to runaway pair production. The coincidence suggests that pair production and annihilation are essential ingredients in the coronae of AGN and BHB and that they control the shape of the observed spectra.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

The hard X-ray perspective on the soft X-ray excess

The X-ray spectra of many active galactic nuclei (AGN) exhibit a `soft excess' below 1keV, whose physical origin remains unclear. Diverse models have been suggested to account for it, including ionised reflection of X-rays from the inner part of the accretion disc, ionised winds/absorbers, and Comptonisation. The ionised reflection model suggests a natural link between the prominence of the soft excess and the Compton reflection hump strength above 10keV, but it has not been clear what hard X-ray signatures, if any, are expected from the other soft X-ray candidate models. Additionally, it has not been possible up until recently to obtain high-quality simultaneous measurements of both soft and hard X-ray emission necessary to distinguish these models, but upcoming joint XMM-NuSTAR programmes provide precisely this opportunity. In this paper, we present an extensive analysis of simulations of XMM+NuSTAR observations, using two candidate soft excess models as inputs, to determine whether such campaigns can disambiguate between them by using hard and soft X-ray observations in tandem. The simulated spectra are fit with the simplest "observer's model" of a black body and neutral reflection to characterise the strength of the soft and hard excesses. A plot of the strength of the hard excess against the soft excess strength provides a diagnostic plot which allows the soft excess production mechanism to be determined in individual sources and samples using current state-of-the-art and next generation hard X-ray enabled observatories. This approach can be straightforwardly extended to other candidate models for the soft excess.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ. Added reference

The power output of local obscured and unobscured AGN: crossing the absorption barrier with Swift/BAT and IRAS

The Swift/BAT 9-month catalogue of active galactic nuclei (AGN) provides an unbiased census of local supermassive black hole accretion, and probes to all but the highest levels of absorption in AGN. We explore a method for characterising the bolometric output of both obscured and unobscured AGN by combining the hard X-ray data from Swift/BAT (14-195keV) with the reprocessed IR emission as seen with the IRAS all-sky surveys. This approach bypasses the complex modifications to the SED introduced by absorption in the optical, UV and 0.1-10 keV regimes and provides a long-term, average picture of the bolometric output of these sources. We broadly follow the approach of Pozzi et al. for calculating the bolometric luminosities by adding nuclear IR and hard X-ray luminosities, and consider different approaches for removing non-nuclear contamination in the large-aperture IRAS fluxes. Using mass estimates from the M_BH-L_bulge relation, we present the Eddington ratios \lambda_Edd and 2-10 keV bolometric corrections for a subsample of 63 AGN (35 obscured and 28 unobscured) from the Swift/BAT catalogue, and confirm previous indications of a low Eddington ratio distribution for both samples. Importantly, we find a tendency for low bolometric corrections (typically 10-30) for the obscured AGN in the sample (with a possible rise from ~15 for \lambda_Edd<0.03 to ~32 above this), providing a hitherto unseen window onto accretion processes in this class of AGN. This finding is of key importance in calculating the expected local black hole mass density from the X-ray background since it is composed of emission from a significant population of such obscured AGN. Analogous studies with high resolution IR data and a range of alternative models for the torus emission will form useful future extensions to this work. (Abridged)Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Optical--to--X-ray emission in low-absorption AGN: Results from the Swift-BAT 9 month catalogue

(Abridged) We present simultaneous optical--to--X-ray spectral energy distributions (SEDs) from Swift's X-ray and UV--optical telescopes (XRT and UVOT) for a well-selected sample of 26 low-redshift (z<0.1) AGN from the Swift/BAT 9-month catalogue, the largest well-studied, hard X-ray selected survey of local AGN to date. Our subsample consists of AGN with low intrinsic X-ray absorption (N_H<10^22 cm^-2) and minimal spectral complexity, to more accurately recover the intrinsic accretion luminosity in these sources. We perform a correction for host galaxy contamination in all available UVOT filter images to recover the intrinsic AGN emission, and estimate intrinsic dust extinction from the resultant nuclear SEDs. Black hole mass estimates are determined from the host-galaxy 2MASS K-band bulge luminosity. Accretion rates determined from our SEDs are on average low (Eddington ratios <~ 0.1) and hard X-ray bolometric corrections cluster at ~10-20, in contrast with the higher values seen for quasars. An average SED for the 22 low accretion rate (Eddington ratio < 0.1) objects is presented, with and without correction for intrinsic extinction. We do not find a correlation of optical--to--X-ray spectral index with Eddington ratio, regardless of the optical reference wavelength chosen for defining the spectral index. The low accretion rates and bolometric corrections found for this representative low-redshift sample are of particular importance for studies of AGN accretion history.Comment: 25 pages, 22 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA

Hidden Symmetry of Higher Dimensional Kerr-NUT-AdS Spacetimes

It is well known that 4-dimensional Kerr-NUT-AdS spacetime possesses the hidden symmetry associated with the Killing-Yano tensor. This tensor is "universal" in the sense that there exist coordinates where it does not depend on any of the free parameters of the metric. Recently the general higher dimensional Kerr-NUT-AdS solutions of the Einstein equations were obtained. We demonstrate that all these metrics with arbitrary rotation and NUT parameters admit a universal Killing-Yano tensor. We give an explicit presentation of the Killing-Yano and Killing tensors and briefly discuss their properties.Comment: 4 pages, some discussion and references are adde