Nature of the warm absorber outflow in NGC 4051

Mizumoto, Misaki; Ebisawa, Ken

Abstract

The narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 4051 is known to exhibit significant X-ray spectral/flux variations and have a number of emission/absorption features. X-ray observations have revealed that these absorption features are blueshifted, which indicates that NGC 4051 has warm absorber outflow. In order to constrain physical parameters of the warm absorber outflow, we analyse the archival data with the longest exposure taken by XMM–Newton in 2009. We calculate the root-mean-square (rms) spectra with the grating spectral resolution for the first time. The rms spectra have a sharp peak and several dips, which can be explained by variable absorption features and non-variable emission lines; a lower ionized warm absorber (WA1: log ξ = 1.5, v = −650 km s−1) shows large variability, whereas higher ionized warm absorbers (WA2: log ξ = 2.5, v = −4100 km s−1, WA3: log ξ = 3.4, v = −6100 km s−1) show little variability. WA1 shows the maximum variability at a time-scale of ∼104 s, suggesting that the absorber locates at ∼103 times of the Schwarzschild radius. The depth of the absorption features due to WA1 and the observed soft X-ray flux are anticorrelated in several observational sequences, which can be explained by variation of partial covering fraction of the double-layer blobs that are composed of the Compton-thick core and the ionized layer (=WA1). WA2 and WA3 show little variability and presumably extend uniformly in the line of sight. The present result shows that NGC 4051 has two types of the warm absorber outflows; the static, high-ionized and extended line-driven disc winds and the variable, low-ionized and clumpy double-layer blobs.

Citation

Mizumoto, M., & Ebisawa, K. (2017). Nature of the warm absorber outflow in NGC 4051. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 466(3), 3259-3271. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw3364

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 22, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Dec 28, 2016
• Publication Date: Apr 30, 2017
• Deposit Date: Oct 18, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 22, 2019
• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Print ISSN: 0035-8711
• Electronic ISSN: 1365-2966
• Publisher: Royal Astronomical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 466
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 3259-3271
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw3364
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1316028