2022ApJ...940..148S

We present the results of the broadband X-ray spectral analysis of simultaneous NuSTAR and XMM-Newton observations of four nearby Compton-thick active galactic nuclei (AGN) candidates selected from the Swift Burst Alert Telescope 150 month catalog. This work is part of a larger effort to identify and characterize all Compton-thick (N_H ≥ 10²⁴ cm^–2) AGN in the local universe (z ≤ 0.05). We used three physically motivated models-MYTorus, borus02, and UXClumpy-to fit and characterize these sources. Of the four candidates analyzed, 2MASX J02051994-0233055 was found to be an unobscured (N_H < 10²² cm^–2) AGN, 2MASX J04075215-6116126 and IC 2227 to be Compton-thin (10²² cm^–2 < N_H < 10²⁴ cm^–2) AGN, and one, ESO 362-8, was confirmed to be a Compton-thick AGN. Additionally, every source was found to have a statistically significant difference between their line-of-sight and average torus hydrogen column density, further supporting the idea that the obscuring material in AGN is inhomogeneous. Furthermore, half of the sources in our sample (2MASX J02051994-0233055 and 2MASX J04075215-6116126) exhibited significant luminosity variation in the last decade, suggesting that this might be a common feature of AGN.