Probing accretion/ejection flows in AGN by characterizing Fe K emission/absorption lines variability with residual maps

Abstract

The dynamics and geometry of the material close to the SMBH in AGN are still largely uncertain, both as regards the inflows via accretion disk and the outflows.The latter phenomena may have a fundamental role in the AGN feedback on the host galaxy, so it is important to understand their properties and extent. A simultaneous investigation of inflows and outflows may highlight some kind of correlation, that shall help to unravel the driving mechanisms of massive winds from the disk, still an open issue. Time-resolved spectral analysis is a key tool to investigate these phenomena.The 4.0-10.0 keV energy band is the most suitable for these aims, because it includes the Fe Kα fluorescence emission line at 6.4 keV, a fundamental proxy of the motions around the SMBH, and possibly Fe resonant absorption lines, features that indicate the presence of massive, relativistic (<v>∼0.1c) disk winds (Ultra Fast Outflows, Tombesi et al. 2010), observed in about 50% of local AGN for which good quality data exist. We use a technique, Residual maps, that couples time and spectral analysis to the two X-ray brightest Seyfert 1 observed to date: NGC 3783 and Mrk 509. It allows to identify spectral features and trace their evolution in time. Residual maps can be used to detect potentially interesting time intervals, on which a deep spectral analysis can be (and will be) carried out to characterize the physical phenomena in act

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