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NuSTAR observations of the powerful radio-galaxy Cygnus A

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [3];  [2];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [3];  [10];  [3];  [11];  [12];  [3];  [3];  [4]
  1. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States); Joint Space-Science Institute (JSI), College Park, MD (United States)
  2. Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge (United Kingdom)
  3. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  4. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  5. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
  6. Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
  7. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
  8. Technical Univ. of Denmark, Lyngby (Denmark)
  9. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  10. Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)
  11. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
  12. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Here, we present NuSTAR observations of the powerful radio galaxy Cygnus A, focusing on the central absorbed active galactic nucleus (AGN). Cygnus A is embedded in a cool-core galaxy cluster, and hence we also examine archival XMM-Newton data to facilitate the decomposition of the spectrum into the AGN and intracluster medium components. NuSTAR gives a source-dominated spectrum of the AGN out to $$\gt 70$$ keV. In gross terms, the NuSTAR spectrum of the AGN has the form of a power law ($${\rm{\Gamma }}\sim 1.6-1.7$$) absorbed by a neutral column density of $${N}_{{\rm{H}}}\sim 1.6\times {10}^{23}\;\;{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}$$. However, we also detect curvature in the hard ($$\gt 10$$ keV) spectrum resulting from reflection by Compton-thick matter out of our line of sight to the X-ray source. Compton reflection, possibly from the outer accretion disk or obscuring torus, is required even permitting a high-energy cut off in the continuum source; the limit on the cut-off energy is $${E}_{\mathrm{cut}}\gt 111$$ keV(90% confidence). Interestingly, the absorbed power law plus reflection model leaves residuals suggesting the absorption/emission from a fast ($$15,000-26,000\;\;\mathrm{km}\;\;{{\rm{s}}}^{-1}\;$$), high column-density ($${N}_{W}\gt 3\times {10}^{23}\;\;{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}$$), highly ionized ($$\xi \sim 2500\;\mathrm{erg}\;\mathrm{cm}\;{{\rm{s}}}^{-1}$$) wind. A second, even faster ionized wind component is also suggested by these data. We show that the ionized wind likely carries a significant mass and momentum flux, and may carry sufficient kinetic energy to exercise feedback on the host galaxy. If confirmed, the simultaneous presence of a strong wind and powerful jets in Cygnus A demonstrates that feedback from radio-jets and sub-relativistic winds are not mutually exclusive phases of AGN activity but can occur simultaneously.
Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1313945
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 22882840
Report Number(s):
SLAC-PUB--16797; arXiv:1506.07175
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal (Online) Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 808; ISSN 1538-4357
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (10)

X-ray analysis of the accreting supermassive black hole in the radio galaxy PKS 2251+11 journal May 2019
The baryon loading effect on relativistic astrophysical jet transport in the interstellar medium journal May 2018
Hard X-ray-selected giant radio galaxies – I. The X-ray properties and radio connection journal September 2018
The X-ray ribs within the cocoon shock of Cygnus A journal March 2018
Evidence for a TDE origin of the radio transient Cygnus A-2 journal April 2019
A Comprehensive Chandra Study of the Disk Wind in the Black Hole Candidate 4U 1630-472 journal November 2019
Imaging the Active Galactic Nucleus Torus in Cygnus A journal April 2019
The baryon loading effect on relativistic astrophysical jet transport in the interstellar medium text January 2018
X-ray analysis of the accreting supermassive black hole in the radio galaxy PKS 2251+11 text January 2019
A Comprehensive Chandra Study of the Disk Wind in the Black Hole Candidate 4U 1630-472 text January 2019

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ASTRO
GRQC
X-rays: individual (Cygnus A)
accretion
accretion disks
astrophysics
galaxies: clusters: intracluster medium
galaxies: jets