2022A&A...666A.169M -
Astronomy and Astrophysics, volume 666A169 (2022/10-1)
Breaking the rules at z ≃ 0.45: The rebel case of RBS 1055.
MARINUCCI A., VIETRI G., PICONCELLI E., BIANCHI S., GUAINAZZI M., LANZUISI G., STERN D. and VIGNALI C.
Abstract (from CDS):
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 (kTe = 50 - 100 keV) and warm (kTe = 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_{\mathrm{e}} = 0.12^{+0.08}_{-0.03} $ keV, $ kT_{\mathrm{e}} = 30^{+40}_{-10} $ keV and Thomson optical depths $ \tau = 30_{-10}^{+15} $ and $ \tau = 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_{\mathrm{H}} = (3.2^{+0.9}_{-0.8})\times 10^{23} $ 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 Ṁout = 25.4 ±1.5 M⊙ yr–1 and outflow kinetic power normalized by the bolometric luminosity $ \dot{E}_{\mathrm{kin}} $/LBol ∼ 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 ⟨MBH⟩ = 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.
Abstract Copyright:
© A. Marinucci et al. 2022
Journal keyword(s):
quasars: supermassive black holes - galaxies: active - quasars: individual: RBS 1055
Simbad objects:
9
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