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Absorption from a multi‐layer circumnuclear medium and reflection from the accretion disc in NGC 1365
Author(s) -
Risaliti G.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
astronomische nachrichten
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.394
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1521-3994
pISSN - 0004-6337
DOI - 10.1002/asna.201612342
Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , absorption (acoustics) , reflection (computer programming) , observable , accretion disc , line of sight , spectral line , black hole (networking) , layer (electronics) , accretion (finance) , astronomy , optics , materials science , computer network , routing protocol , routing (electronic design automation) , quantum mechanics , link state routing protocol , computer science , programming language , composite material
NGC 1365 hosts an X‐ray obscured AGN known for both its variable absorption and its relativistic features in the reflection component. Recent simultaneous observations performed by XMM‐ Newton and NuSTAR caught the source in a rare, nearly unobscured state, revealing the presence of a warm absorber and a neutral, but low column density (∼ 10 22 cm –2 ) absorber, usually not observable due to thicker layers along the line of sight. Here I propose a multi‐layer structure of the circumnuclear medium which can explain all the observed absorption states of this source, and their variability properties. Remarkably, despite the spectral complexity due to this multi‐component absorber, the relativistic reflection component (and hence the black hole spin) can be unambiguously measured through a time resolved spectroscopic analysis. (© 2016 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)