AGN STORM 2. I. First results: A Change in the Weather of Mrk 817

Kara, Erin; Mehdipour, Missagh; Kriss, Gerard A.; Cackett, Edward M.; Arav, Nahum; Barth, Aaron J.; Byun, Doyee; Brotherton, Michael S.; De Rosa, Gisella; Gelbord, Jonathan; Hernández Santisteban, Juan V.; Hu, Chen; Kaastra, Jelle; Landt, Hermine; Li, Yan-Rong; Miller, Jake A.; Montano, John; Partington, Ethan; Aceituno, Jesús; Bai, Jin-Ming; Bao, Dongwei; Bentz, Misty C.; Brink, Thomas G.; Chelouche, Doron; Chen, Yong-Jie; Colmenero, Encarni Romero; Bontà, Elena Dalla; Dehghanian, Maryam; Du, Pu; Edelson, Rick; Ferland, Gary J.; Ferrarese, Laura; Fian, Carina; Filippenko, Alexei V.; Fischer, Travis; Goad, Michael R.; González Buitrago, Diego H.; Gorjian, Varoujan; Grier, Catherine J.; Guo, Wei-Jian; Hall, Patrick B.; Ho, Luis C.; Homayouni, Y.; Horne, Keith; Ilić, Dragana; Jiang, Bo-Wei; Joner, Michael D.; Kaspi, Shai; Kochanek, Christopher S.; Korista, Kirk T.; Kynoch, Daniel; Li, Sha-Sha; Liu, Jun-Rong; M. cHardy, Ian M.; McLane, Jacob N.; Mitchell, Jake A.J.; Netzer, Hagai; Olson,...

Abstract

We present the first results from the ongoing, intensive, multiwavelength monitoring program of the luminous Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 817. While this active galactic nucleus was, in part, selected for its historically unobscured nature, we discovered that the X-ray spectrum is highly absorbed, and there are new blueshifted, broad, and narrow UV absorption lines, which suggest that a dust-free, ionized obscurer located at the inner broad-line region partially covers the central source. Despite the obscuration, we measure UV and optical continuum reverberation lags consistent with a centrally illuminated Shakura–Sunyaev thin accretion disk, and measure reverberation lags associated with the optical broad-line region, as expected. However, in the first 55 days of the campaign, when the obscuration was becoming most extreme, we observe a de-coupling of the UV continuum and the UV broad emission-line variability. The correlation recovered in the next 42 days of the campaign, as Mrk 817 entered a less obscured state. The short C IV and Lyα lags suggest that the accretion disk extends beyond the UV broad-line region. Unified A

Citation

Kara, E., Mehdipour, M., Kriss, G. A., Cackett, E. M., Arav, N., Barth, A. J., …Zu, Y. (2021). AGN STORM 2. I. First results: A Change in the Weather of Mrk 817. Astrophysical Journal, 922(2), Article 151. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac2159

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 8, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Nov 26, 2021
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Jan 18, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 19, 2022
• Journal: Astrophysical Journal
• Print ISSN: 0004-637X
• Electronic ISSN: 1538-4357
• Publisher: American Astronomical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 922
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: 151
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac2159
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1217835