On the X-ray, optical emission line and black hole mass properties of local Seyfert galaxies

We investigate the relation between X-ray nuclear emission, optical emission line luminosities and black hole masses for a sample of 47 Scyfert galaxies. The sample, which has been selected from the Palomar optical spectroscopic survey of nearby galaxies (Ho et al. 1997a, ApJS, 112, 315), covers a w...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Panessa, Francesca, Bassani, Loredana, Cappi, Massimo, Dadina, M., Barcons, Xavier, Carrera, Francisco J., Ho, L. C., Iwasawa, K.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2006
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/170069
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/170069
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:X-ray galaxies
Accretion disks
Galaxies: nuclei
Galaxies: Seyfert
Descripción
Sumario:We investigate the relation between X-ray nuclear emission, optical emission line luminosities and black hole masses for a sample of 47 Scyfert galaxies. The sample, which has been selected from the Palomar optical spectroscopic survey of nearby galaxies (Ho et al. 1997a, ApJS, 112, 315), covers a wide range of nuclear powers, from L2-10kev ∼ 10 43 erg/s down to very low luminosities (L2-10kev ∼ 1038 erg/s). Best available data from Chandra, XMM-Newton and, in a few cases, ASCA observations have been considered. Thanks to the good spatial resolution available from these observations and a proper modeling of the various spectral components, it has been possible to obtain accurate nuclear X-ray luminosities not contaminated by off-nuclear sources and/or diffuse emission. X-ray luminosities have then been corrected taking into account the likely candidate Compton thick sources, which are a high fraction (>30%) among type 2 Seyferts in our sample. The main result of this study is that we confirm strong linear correlations between 2-10 keV. [OIII]λ5007. H α luminosities which show the same slope as quasars and luminous Seyfert galaxies, independent of the level of nuclear activity displayed. Moreover, despite the wide range of Eddington ratios (L/L Edd) tested here (six orders of magnitude, from 0.1 down to ∼ 10-7), no correlation is found between the X-ray or optical emission line luminosities and the black hole mass. Our results suggest that Seyfert nuclei in our sample are consistent with being a scaled-down version of more luminous AGN.