Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Koss, Michael J.
• Glidden, Ana
• Balokovi, Mislav
• Stern, Daniel
• Lamperti, Isabella
• Assef, Roberto
• Bauer, Franz
• Ballantyne, David
• Boggs, Steven E.
• Craig, William W.
• Farrah, Duncan
• Fürst, Felix
• Gandhi, Poshak
• Gehrels, Neil
• Hailey, Charles J.
• Harrison, Fiona A.
• Markwardt, Craig
• Masini, Alberto
• Ricci, Claudio
• Treister, Ezequiel
• Walton, Dominic J.
• Zhang, William W.

Titel

NuSTAR RESOLVES THE FIRST DUAL AGN ABOVE 10 keV IN SWIFT J2028.5+2543

Ist Teil von

• Astrophysical journal. Letters, 2016-06, Vol.824 (1), p.L4-L4

Ort / Verlag

The American Astronomical Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2016

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• ABSTRACT We have discovered heavy obscuration in the dual active galactic nucleus (AGN) in the Swift/Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) source SWIFT J2028.5+2543 using Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). While an early XMM-Newton study suggested the emission was mainly from NGC 6921, the superior spatial resolution of NuSTAR above 10 keV resolves the Swift/BAT emission into two sources associated with the nearby galaxies MCG +04-48-002 and NGC 6921 (z = 0.014) with a projected separation of 25.3 kpc (91″). NuSTAR's sensitivity above 10 keV finds both are heavily obscured to Compton-thick levels (NH (1-2) × 1024 cm−2) and contribute equally to the BAT detection ( L 10 − 50 keV int 6 × 1042 erg s−1). The observed luminosity of both sources is severely diminished in the 2-10 keV band ( L 2 − 10 keV obs < 0.1 × L 2 − 10 keV int ), illustrating the importance of >10 keV surveys like those with NuSTAR and Swift/BAT. Compared to archival X-ray data, MCG +04-48-002 shows significant variability (>3) between observations. Despite being bright X-ray AGNs, they are difficult to detect using optical emission-line diagnostics because MCG +04-48-002 is identified as a starburst/composite because of the high rates of star formation from a luminous infrared galaxy while NGC 6921 is only classified as a LINER using line detection limits. SWIFT J2028.5+2543 is the first dual AGN resolved above 10 keV and is the second most heavily obscured dual AGN discovered to date in the X-rays other than NGC 6240.