DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: NuStar View of the Central Region of the Perseus Cluster

Abstract

Located at the center of the Perseus cluster, 3C 84 is an extremely bright and nearby radio galaxy. Because of the strong diffuse thermal emission from the cluster in X-rays, the detailed properties and the origin of a power-law component from the central active galactic nucleus (AGN) remains unclear in the source. We report here the first NuSTAR observations of 3C 84. The source was observed for 24.2 and 32 ks on February 01 and 04, 2018, respectively. NuSTAR observations spectrally decompose the power-law AGN component above 10 keV. The power-law component dominates the spectrum above 20 keV with a photon index $$\sim$$1.9 and an energy flux F$$_{20-30 keV}$$ = 1.0 $$\times$$10$$^{-11}$$ erg cm$$^{-2}$$ s$$^{-1}$$, corresponding to an isotropic luminosity, $$L_{20-30 keV}$$ = 7.4$$\times$$10$$^{42}$$ erg s$$^{-1}$$. We discuss possible emitting sites for the power-law component. The expected thermal emission from the accretion disk is not hot enough to account for the hard X-rays detected from the source. Furthermore, wimilar X-ray and $$γ$$-ray photon indices and long-term flux variations, the absence of cutoff energy in the hard X-ray spectrum of the source, correlated hard X-ray flux and hardness ratio variations, and the similarity of optical-X-ray slope to blazar rather than Seyfert galaxies supports the hard X-ray power-law component originating from the jet.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [3]; ORCiD logo [4];  [5]
  1. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  2. SLAC and Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)
  3. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
  4. Univ. of Cambridge, Cambridge (United Kingdom)
  5. Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Daejeon (Republic of Korea)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1481170
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-76SF00515
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
The Astrophysical Journal. Letters (Online)
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal. Letters (Online); Journal Volume: 866; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2041-8213
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; galaxies: active; galaxies: clusters: individual (Perseus cluster); galaxies: individual (3C 84)–quasars: individual (3C 84); X-rays: galaxies

Citation Formats

Rani, Bindu, Madejski, G. M., Mushotzky, R. F., Reynolds, C., and Hodgson, J. A. NuStar View of the Central Region of the Perseus Cluster. United States: N. p., 2018. Web. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aae48f.
Rani, Bindu, Madejski, G. M., Mushotzky, R. F., Reynolds, C., & Hodgson, J. A. NuStar View of the Central Region of the Perseus Cluster. United States. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aae48f
Rani, Bindu, Madejski, G. M., Mushotzky, R. F., Reynolds, C., and Hodgson, J. A. Wed . "NuStar View of the Central Region of the Perseus Cluster". United States. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aae48f. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1481170.
@article{osti_1481170,
title = {NuStar View of the Central Region of the Perseus Cluster},
author = {Rani, Bindu and Madejski, G. M. and Mushotzky, R. F. and Reynolds, C. and Hodgson, J. A.},
abstractNote = {Located at the center of the Perseus cluster, 3C 84 is an extremely bright and nearby radio galaxy. Because of the strong diffuse thermal emission from the cluster in X-rays, the detailed properties and the origin of a power-law component from the central active galactic nucleus (AGN) remains unclear in the source. We report here the first NuSTAR observations of 3C 84. The source was observed for 24.2 and 32 ks on February 01 and 04, 2018, respectively. NuSTAR observations spectrally decompose the power-law AGN component above 10 keV. The power-law component dominates the spectrum above 20 keV with a photon index $\sim$1.9 and an energy flux F$_{20-30 keV}$ = 1.0 $\times$10$^{-11}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$, corresponding to an isotropic luminosity, $L_{20-30 keV}$ = 7.4$\times$10$^{42}$ erg s$^{-1}$. We discuss possible emitting sites for the power-law component. The expected thermal emission from the accretion disk is not hot enough to account for the hard X-rays detected from the source. Furthermore, wimilar X-ray and $γ$-ray photon indices and long-term flux variations, the absence of cutoff energy in the hard X-ray spectrum of the source, correlated hard X-ray flux and hardness ratio variations, and the similarity of optical-X-ray slope to blazar rather than Seyfert galaxies supports the hard X-ray power-law component originating from the jet.},
doi = {10.3847/2041-8213/aae48f},
journal = {The Astrophysical Journal. Letters (Online)},
number = 1,
volume = 866,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Oct 10 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Wed Oct 10 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 5 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Figures / Tables:

FIG. 1 FIG. 1: NuSTAR image of the Perseus cluster in the 3-70 KeV Kev band taken on Feb. 04, 2017. The bright emission at the center of the image is 3C 84.

Save / Share:

Works referenced in this record:

FERMI /LARGE AREA TELESCOPE BRIGHT GAMMA-RAY SOURCE LIST
journal, June 2009

  • Abdo, A. A.; Ackermann, M.; Ajello, M.
  • The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Vol. 183, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1088/0067-0049/183/1/46

GALAXY CLUSTERS IN THE SWIFT /BURST ALERT TELESCOPE ERA: HARD X-RAYS IN THE INTRACLUSTER MEDIUM
journal, December 2008


Abundances of the elements: Meteoritic and solar
journal, January 1989


XMM‐Newton Observations of the Perseus Cluster. I. The Temperature and Surface Brightness Structure
journal, June 2003

  • Churazov, E.; Forman, W.; Jones, C.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 590, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1086/374923

Hard X-ray properties of blazars
journal, September 2001


Gamma-ray-loud blazars and beaming
journal, April 1995

  • Dondi, Laura; Ghisellini, Gabriele
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 273, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/273.3.583

A Complete Atlas of Recalibrated Hubble Space Telescope Faint Object Spectrograph Spectra of Active Galactic Nuclei and Quasars. I. Pre‐COSTAR Spectra
journal, January 2004

  • Evans, Ian N.; Koratkar, Anuradha P.
  • The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Vol. 150, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1086/379649

Effects of the variability of the nucleus of NGC 1275 on X-ray observations of the surrounding intracluster medium
journal, June 2015

  • Fabian, A. C.; Walker, S. A.; Pinto, C.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 451, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stv1134

Broad line emission from iron K- and L-shell transitions in the active galaxy 1H 0707-495
journal, May 2009


X-Ray and GeV Gamma-Ray Variability of the Radio Galaxy NGC 1275
journal, March 2018

  • Fukazawa, Yasushi; Shiki, Kensei; Tanaka, Yasuyuki
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 855, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aaabc0

THE NUCLEAR SPECTROSCOPIC TELESCOPE ARRAY ( NuSTAR ) HIGH-ENERGY X-RAY MISSION
journal, May 2013

  • Harrison, Fiona A.; Craig, William W.; Christensen, Finn E.
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 770, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/770/2/103

Hitomi observation of radio galaxy NGC 1275: The first X-ray microcalorimeter spectroscopy of Fe-Kα line emission from an active galactic nucleus*
journal, March 2018

  • Aharonian, Hitomi Collaboration, Felix; Akamatsu, Hiroki; Akimoto, Fumie
  • Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, Vol. 70, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1093/pasj/psx147

A Search for “Dwarf'' Seyfert Nuclei. III. Spectroscopic Parameters and Properties of the Host Galaxies
journal, October 1997

  • Ho, Luis C.; Filippenko, Alexei V.; Sargent, Wallace L. W.
  • The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Vol. 112, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1086/313041

KVN observations reveal multiple γ-ray emission regions in 3C 84?
journal, January 2018

  • Hodgson, Jeffrey A.; Rani, Bindu; Lee, Sang-Sung
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 475, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx3041

The X-ray to optical-UV luminosity ratio of X-ray selected type 1 AGN in XMM-COSMOS
journal, March 2010


Angle-dependent Compton reflection of X-rays and gamma-rays
journal, April 1995

  • Magdziarz, Paweł; Zdziarski, Andrzej A.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 273, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/273.3.837

VLBI Monitoring of 3C 84 (NGC 1275) in Early Phase of the 2005 Outburst
journal, April 2010

  • Nagai, Hiroshi; Suzuki, Kenta; Asada, Keiichi
  • Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, Vol. 62, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1093/pasj/62.2.L11

The 105-Month Swift -BAT All-sky Hard X-Ray Survey
journal, March 2018

  • Oh, Kyuseok; Koss, Michael; Markwardt, Craig B.
  • The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Vol. 235, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.3847/1538-4365/aaa7fd

On the size and Location of the X-Ray Emitting Coronae Around Black Holes
journal, May 2013


The size of the X-ray emitting region in SWIFT J2127.4+5654 via a broad line region cloud X-ray eclipse
journal, October 2013

  • Sanfrutos, M.; Miniutti, G.; Agís-González, B.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 436, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stt1675

Kinematics and excitation of the molecular hydrogen accretion disc in NGC 1275
journal, January 2013

  • Scharwächter, J.; McGregor, P. J.; Dopita, M. A.
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 429, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1093/mnras/sts502

Chandra temperature and metallicity maps of the Perseus cluster core
journal, November 2002


Radio Loudness of Active Galactic Nuclei: Observational Facts and Theoretical Implications
journal, April 2007

  • Sikora, Marek; Stawarz, Łukasz; Lasota, Jean‐Pierre
  • The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 658, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1086/511972

EXPLORING THE CENTRAL SUB-PARSEC REGION OF THE γ-RAY BRIGHT RADIO GALAXY 3C 84 WITH VLBA AT 43 GHz IN THE PERIOD OF 2002-2008
journal, February 2012


The Origins of the Gamma-Ray Flux Variations of NGC 1275 Based on Eight Years of Fermi -LAT Observations
journal, June 2018


Determination of the X-ray reflection emissivity profile of 1H 0707-495: The emissivity profile of 1H 0707-495
journal, March 2011


The nature of the molecular gas system in the core of NGC 1275
journal, May 2005


The size of the X-ray emitting region in SWIFT J2127.4+5654 via a broad line region cloud X-ray eclipse
text, January 2013


The 105 month Swift-BAT all-sky hard X-ray survey
text, January 2018


Hard X-ray properties of blazars
text, January 2001


A Search for "Dwarf" Seyfert Nuclei. III. Spectroscopic Parameters and Properties of the Host Galaxies
text, January 1997


Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.