Davies, RI, Burtscher, L, Rosario, D, Storchi-Bergmann, T, Contursi, A, Genzel, R, Gracia-Carpio, J, Hicks, E, Janssen, A, Koss, M, Lin, M-Y, Lutz, D, Maciejewski, W, Mueller-Sanchez, F, de Xivry, GO, Ricci, C, Riffel, R, Riffel, RA, Schartmann, M, Schnorr-Mueller, A , Sternberg, A, Sturm, E, Tacconi, L and Veilleux, S (2015) Insights on the Dusty Torus and Neutral Torus From Optical and X-Ray Obscuration in A Complete Volume Limited Hard X-Ray Agn Sample. The Astrophysical Journal, 806 (1). ISSN 1538-4357
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Abstract
We describe a complete volume limited sample of nearby active galaxies selected by their 14–195 keV luminosity, and outline its rationale for studying the mechanisms regulating gas inflow and outflow. We also describe a complementary sample of inactive galaxies, selected to match the host galaxy properties. The active sample appears to have no bias in terms of active galactic nucleus (AGN) type, the only difference being the neutral absorbing column, which is two orders of magnitude greater for the Seyfert 2s. In the luminosity range spanned by the sample, ${\rm log} {{L}_{14-195\,{\rm keV}}}[{\rm erg}\;{{{\rm s}}^{-1}}]=42.4$–43.7, the optically obscured and X-ray absorbed fractions are 50%–65%. The similarity of these fractions to more distant spectroscopic AGN samples, although over a limited luminosity range, suggests that the torus does not strongly evolve with redshift. Our sample confirms that X-ray unabsorbed Seyfert 2s are rare, comprising not more than a few percent of the Seyfert 2 population. At higher luminosities, the optically obscured fraction decreases (as expected for the increasing dust sublimation radius), but the X-ray absorbed fraction changes little. We argue that the cold X-ray absorption in these Seyfert 1s can be accounted for by neutral gas in clouds that also contribute to the broad-line region (BLR) emission, and suggest that a geometrically thick neutral gas torus co-exists with the BLR and bridges the gap to the dusty torus.
Item Type: | Article |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | 0201 Astronomical And Space Sciences, 0305 Organic Chemistry, 0306 Physical Chemistry (Incl. Structural) |
Subjects: | Q Science > QB Astronomy Q Science > QC Physics |
Divisions: | Astrophysics Research Institute |
Publisher: | American Astronomical Society |
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Date Deposited: | 06 Jun 2017 11:37 |
Last Modified: | 04 Sep 2021 11:27 |
DOI or ID number: | 10.1088/0004-637X/806/1/127 |
URI: | https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/6647 |
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