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arXiv · 1809.01757

Coronal properties of Swift/BAT-selected Seyfert 1 AGN observed with NuSTAR

Nikita Kamraj·Fiona Harrison·Mislav Baloković·Anne Lohfink·Murray Brightman
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Abstract

The NuSTAR observatory, with its high sensitivity in hard X-rays, has enabled detailed broadband modeling of the X-ray spectra of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), thereby allowing constraints to be placed on the high-energy cutoff of the X-ray coronal continuum. We investigate the spectral properties of a sample of 46 NuSTAR-observed Seyfert 1 AGN selected from the Swift/BAT 70-month hard X-ray survey. Our measurements of the high-energy cutoff of the continuum from modeling the NuSTAR X-ray spectra are used to map out the temperature - compactness ($\theta-l$) plane for AGN coronae. We find that most of the coronae lie clustered near the boundary for runaway pair production, suggesting that annihilation and pair production act to regulate the temperature of the corona. We discuss the implications of coronae whose high-energy cutoff may indicate a low coronal temperature on the heating and thermalization mechanisms in the corona.

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Nikita Kamraj, Fiona Harrison, Mislav Baloković, Anne Lohfink, Murray Brightman. 2018-09-05. Coronal properties of Swift/BAT-selected Seyfert 1 AGN observed with NuSTAR. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aadd0d

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