NuSTAR AND CHANDRA INSIGHT INTO THE NATURE OF THE 3-40 keV NUCLEAR EMISSION IN NGC 253
- Johns Hopkins University, Homewood Campus, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 662, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, 12 Physics Hall, Ames, IA 50011 (United States)
- ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Postbus 2, 7990 AA, Dwingeloo (Netherlands)
- Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, Chicago, IL 60637 (United States)
- Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)
- DTU Space-National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Elektrovej 327, DK-2800 Lyngby (Denmark)
- Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 (United States)
- Caltech Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
- School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Highfield SO17 IBJ (United Kingdom)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109 (United States)
- Physics Department, University of Crete, Heraklion (Greece)
We present results from three nearly simultaneous Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and Chandra monitoring observations between 2012 September 2 and 2012 November 16 of the local star-forming galaxy NGC 253. The 3-40 keV intensity of the inner {approx}20 arcsec ({approx}400 pc) nuclear region, as measured by NuSTAR, varied by a factor of {approx}2 across the three monitoring observations. The Chandra data reveal that the nuclear region contains three bright X-ray sources, including a luminous (L{sub 2-10{sub keV}} {approx} few Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 39} erg s{sup -1}) point source located {approx}1 arcsec from the dynamical center of the galaxy (within the 3{sigma} positional uncertainty of the dynamical center); this source drives the overall variability of the nuclear region at energies {approx}>3 keV. We make use of the variability to measure the spectra of this single hard X-ray source when it was in bright states. The spectra are well described by an absorbed (N{sub H} Almost-Equal-To 1.6 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 23} cm{sup -2}) broken power-law model with spectral slopes and break energies that are typical of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs), but not active galactic nuclei (AGNs). A previous Chandra observation in 2003 showed a hard X-ray point source of similar luminosity to the 2012 source that was also near the dynamical center ({theta} Almost-Equal-To 0.4 arcsec); however, this source was offset from the 2012 source position by Almost-Equal-To 1 arcsec. We show that the probability of the 2003 and 2012 hard X-ray sources being unrelated is >>99.99% based on the Chandra spatial localizations. Interestingly, the Chandra spectrum of the 2003 source (3-8 keV) is shallower in slope than that of the 2012 hard X-ray source. Its proximity to the dynamical center and harder Chandra spectrum indicate that the 2003 source is a better AGN candidate than any of the sources detected in our 2012 campaign; however, we were unable to rule out a ULX nature for this source. Future NuSTAR and Chandra monitoring would be well equipped to break the degeneracy between the AGN and ULX nature of the 2003 source, if again caught in a high state.
- OSTI ID:
- 22140129
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 771, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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