X-ray Evidence for Multiple Absorbing Structures in Seyfert Galaxies

We have used X-ray spectra to measure attenuating columns in a large sample of Seyfert galaxies. Over 30 of these sources have resolved radio jets, allowing the relative orientation of the nucleus and host galaxy to be constrained. We have discovered that the distribution of absorbing columns is strongly correlated with the relative orientation of the Seyfert structures. This result is inconsistent with unification models including only a torus and is instead most readily explained if a second absorber is included: in addition to a Compton-thick, parsec-scale torus there would also be a larger-scale absorber with N_H < 10^{23} cm^{-2}. The second absorber is aligned with the host galactic plane while the torus is arbitrarily misaligned.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, to appear in "Multiwavelength AGN Surveys" (Cozumel, December 8-12 2003), ed. R. Maiolino and R. Mujica, Singapore: World Scientific, 2004. Additional material may be found at http://space.mit.edu/home/jonathan/research.htm

Constraints on hot metals in the Vicinity of the Galaxy

We have searched for evidence of soft X-ray absorption by hot metals in the vicinity of the Galaxy in the spectra of a small sample of fifteen Type I AGN observed with the high resolution X-ray gratings on board Chandra. This is an extension of our previous survey of hot OVII and OVIII absorbing gas in the vicinity of the Galaxy. The strongest absorption signatures within a few hundred km/s of their rest-frame energies are most likely due to warm absorbing outflows from the nearest AGN, which are back-lighting the local hot gas. We emphasize that absorption signatures in the spectra of some distant AGN that are kinematically consistent with the recessional velocity of the AGN are most likely to be due to hot local gas. Along the sightline towards PG 1211+143, PDS 456 and MCG-6-30-15 there is a very large absorbing Fe column density which is kinematically consistent with absorption by hot, local Fe. The sightlines to these three AGN pass through the limb of the Northern Polar Spur (NPS), a local bubble formed from several supernovae which, if rich in Fe, may account for a large local Fe column. We obtain limits on the column density of local, highly ionized N, Ne, Mg, Si along all of the sightlines in our sample. We correlate the column density limits with those of highly ionized O along the same sightlines. Assuming the hot local gas is in collisionally ionized equilibrium, we obtain limits on the temperature and relative abundances of the metals in the hot local gas. Our limits on the ionic column densities in the local hot gas seem to be consistent with those observed in the hot halo gas of edge-on normal spiral galaxies.Comment: 9 pages,2 figures, MNRAS (accepted