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Title: NuSTARUnveils a Compton-Thick Type 2 Quasar in MrK 34

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)
ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [4];  [2];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [11];  [1];  [12];  [13];  [14];  [2];  [15] more »;  [16];  [17];  [18];  [19];  [20];  [21];  [20];  [17];  [2];  [20] « less
  1. Durham Univ., Durham (United Kingdom)
  2. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  3. Pontificia Univ. Catolica de Chile, Santiago (Chile); Univ. de Valparaiso, Valparaiso (Chile)
  4. Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
  5. Pontificia Univ. Catolica de Chile, Santiago (Chile); Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO (United States)
  6. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
  7. The Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
  8. Max-Planck-Institut fur extraterrestrische Physik, Garching bei Munchen (Germany)
  9. Technical Univ. of Denmark, Lyngby (Denmark)
  10. INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, Bologna (Italy)
  11. Technical Univ. of Denmark, Lyngby (Denmark); Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  12. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA (United States)
  13. Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge (United Kingdom)
  14. Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)
  15. Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (United States)
  16. ETH Zurich, Zurich (Switzerland)
  17. Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)
  18. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); The Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
  19. Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)
  20. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  21. ASDC-ASI, Roma (Italy); INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Monte Porzio Catone (RM) (Italy)
+ Show Author Affiliations

We present Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) 3-40 keV observations of the optically selected Type 2 quasar (QSO2) SDSS J1034+6001 or Mrk 34. The high-quality hard X-ray spectrum and archival XMM-Newton data can be fitted self-consistently with a reflection-dominated continuum and a strong Fe Kα fluorescence line with equivalent width >1 keV. Prior X-ray spectral fitting below 10 keV showed the source to be consistent with being obscured by Compton-thin column densities of gas along the line of sight, despite evidence for much higher columns from multiwavelength data. NuSTAR now enables a direct measurement of this column and shows that N H lies in the Compton-thick (CT) regime. The new data also show a high intrinsic 2-10 keV luminosity of L 2-10 ~ 1044 erg s–1, in contrast to previous low-energy X-ray measurements where L 2-10 ≲ 1043 erg s–1 (i.e., X-ray selection below 10 keV does not pick up this source as an intrinsically luminous obscured quasar). Both the obscuring column and the intrinsic power are about an order of magnitude (or more) larger than inferred from pre-NuSTAR X-ray spectral fitting. Mrk 34 is thus a "gold standard" CT QSO2 and is the nearest non-merging system in this class, in contrast to the other local CT quasar NGC 6240, which is currently undergoing a major merger coupled with strong star formation. For typical X-ray bolometric correction factors, the accretion luminosity of Mrk 34 is high enough to potentially power the total infrared luminosity. In conclusion, X-ray spectral fitting also shows that thermal emission related to star formation is unlikely to drive the observed bright soft component below ~3 keV, favoring photoionization instead.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1165904
Report Number(s):
SLAC-PUB--16155; arXiv:1407.1844
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal (Online) Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 792; ISSN 1538-4357
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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NuSTAR reveals that the heavily obscured nucleus of NGC 2785 was the contaminant of IRAS 09104+4109 in the Beppo SAX/PDS hard X-rays journal October 2018
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ARE COMPTON-THICK AGNs THE MISSING LINK BETWEEN MERGERS AND BLACK HOLE GROWTH? journal November 2015
The subarcsecond mid-infrared view of local active galactic nuclei – II. The mid-infrared–X-ray correlation journal September 2015
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THE COMPLETE INFRARED VIEW OF ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI FROM THE 70 MONTH SWIFT /BAT CATALOG journal January 2017
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NuSTAR Uncovers an Extremely Local Compton-thick AGN in NGC 4968 journal December 2019
BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey. V. X-Ray Properties of the Swift /BAT 70-month AGN Catalog journal December 2017
Mid-infrared luminous quasars in the GOODS-Herschel fields: a large population of heavily-obscured, Compton-thick quasars at z~2 text January 2015
The subarcsecond mid-infrared view of local active galactic nuclei: II. The mid-infrared--X-ray correlation text January 2015
Are Compton-Thick AGN the Missing Link Between Mergers and Black Hole Growth? text January 2015
Active Galactic Nuclei: what's in a name? text January 2017
BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey - V. X-ray properties of the Swift/BAT 70-month AGN catalog text January 2017
The Frequency of Intrinsic X-ray Weakness Among Broad Absorption Line Quasars text January 2018
Investigating the Covering Fraction Distribution of Swift/BAT AGN with X-ray and IR Observations text January 2018
NuSTAR and Keck Observations of Heavily Obscured Quasars Selected by WISE text January 2018
The black hole X-ray transient Swift J1357.2-0933 as seen with Swift and NuSTAR during its 2017 outburst text January 2019

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ASTRO
Astrophysics
GRQC
X-rays: galaxies
X-rays: individual (Mrk 34)
galaxies: active