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arXiv · 0901.1323

Metallicity measurements in AGNs

Smita Mathur·Dale Fields
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Abstract

Measuring metallicity in the nuclear regions of AGNs is difficult because only a few lines are observed and ionization correction becomes a major problem. Nitrogen to carbon ratio has been widely used as an indicator for metallicity, but precise measurements have been lacking. We made such measurements for the first time using a wide baseline of ionization states with observations from FUSE, HST and Chandra. OVI observations with FUSE were crucial in this effort. We measured super-solar metallicities in two AGNs and found that N/C does not scale with metallicity. This suggests that chemical enrichment scenario in nuclear regions of galaxies may be different from traditional models of metal enrichment.

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Smita Mathur, Dale Fields. 2009-01-09. Metallicity measurements in AGNs. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3154051

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