Three AGN Close To The Effective Eddington Limit

The Effective Eddington Limit for dusty gas surrounding AGN is lower than the canonical Eddington limit for hydrogen gas. Previous results from the Swift/BAT 9-month catalogue suggested that in the overwhelming majority of local AGN, the dusty absorbing gas is below this Effective Eddington limit, implying that radiation pressure is insufficient to blow away the absorbing clouds. We present an analysis of three objects from that sample which were found to be close to the Effective Eddington limit (NGC454, 2MASX J03565655-4041453 and XSS J05054-2348), using newly obtained XMM-Newton data. We use the X-ray data to better constrain the absorbing column density, and supplement them with XMM optical monitor (OM) data, infrared Spitzer and Herschel data where available to construct a broad-band spectral energy distribution to estimate refined bolometric luminosities and Eddington ratios for these three objects. The new XMM-Newton observations show all three objects moving away from the region expected for short-lived absorption in the N_H-\lambda_{Edd} plane into the `long-lived absorption' region. We find our conclusions robust to different methods for estimating the bolometric luminosity and Eddington ratio. Interestingly, 2MASX J03565655-4041453 and XSS J05054-2348 now exhibit complex X-ray spectra, at variance with previous analyses of their Swift/XRT data. We find evidence for absorption variability in NGC 454 and 2MASX J03565655-4041453, perhaps implying that although the radiation pressure from the central engine is insufficient to cause clearly detectable outflows, it may cause absorption variations over longer timescales. However, more robust black hole mass estimates would improve the accuracy of the Eddington ratio estimates for these objects.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA

Separability of Hamilton-Jacobi and Klein-Gordon Equations in General Kerr-NUT-AdS Spacetimes

We demonstrate the separability of the Hamilton-Jacobi and scalar field equations in general higher dimensional Kerr-NUT-AdS spacetimes. No restriction on the parameters characterizing these metrics is imposed.Comment: 4 pages, no figure

Separability in Cohomogeneity-2 Kerr-NUT-AdS Metrics

The remarkable and unexpected separability of the Hamilton-Jacobi and Klein-Gordon equations in the background of a rotating four-dimensional black hole played an important role in the construction of generalisations of the Kerr metric, and in the uncovering of hidden symmetries associated with the existence of Killing tensors. In this paper, we show that the Hamilton-Jacobi and Klein-Gordon equations are separable in Kerr-AdS backgrounds in all dimensions, if one specialises the rotation parameters so that the metrics have cohomogeneity 2. Furthermore, we show that this property of separability extends to the NUT generalisations of these cohomogeneity-2 black holes that we obtained in a recent paper. In all these cases, we also construct the associated irreducible rank-2 Killing tensor whose existence reflects the hidden symmetry that leads to the separability. We also consider some cohomogeneity-1 specialisations of the new Kerr-NUT-AdS metrics, showing how they relate to previous results in the literature.Comment: Latex, 15 pages, minor typos correcte

Particle Motion and Scalar Field Propagation in Myers-Perry Black Hole Spacetimes in All Dimensions

We study separability of the Hamilton-Jacobi and massive Klein-Gordon equations in the general Myers-Perry black hole background in all dimensions. Complete separation of both equations is carried out in cases when there are two sets of equal black hole rotation parameters, which significantly enlarges the rotational symmetry group. We explicitly construct a nontrivial irreducible Killing tensor associated with the enlarged symmetry group which permits separation. We also derive first-order equations of motion for particles in these backgrounds and examine some of their properties.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX2