An X-ray view of 82 LINERs with Chandra and XMM-Newton data

By O. González-Martín, J. Masegosa, I. Márquez, M. Guainazzi, E. J. X. A. Group, D. Physics, Astronomy, L. University, Leicester, UK Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia and 8 more. 2009

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We present the results of a homogeneous X-ray analysis for 82 nearby low-ionisation, narrow emission-line regions (LINERs) selected from the catalogue of Carrillo et al. (1999, Rev. Mex. Astron. Astrofis., 35, 187). All sources have available Chandra (68 sources) and/or XMM-Newton (55 sources) observations. This is the largest sample of LINERs with X-ray spectral data (60 out of the 82 objects), and it significantly improves our previous analysis based on Chandra data for 51 LINERs (Gonzalez-Martin et al. 2006b, A&A, 460, 45). It both increases the sample size and adds XMM-Newton data . New models permit the inclusion of double absorbers in the spectral fits. Nuclear X-ray morphology is inferred from the compactness of detected nuclear sources in the hard band (4.5–8.0 keV). Sixty per cent of the sample shows a compact nuclear source and are classified as active galactic nucleus (AGN) candidates. The spectral analysis indicates that best fits involve a composite model: 1) absorbed primary continuum and 2) soft spectrum below 2 keV described by an absorbed scatterer and/or a thermal component. The resulting median spectral parameters and their standard deviations are $\langle\Gamma\rangle$ = 2.11 ± 0.52, $\langle kT\rangle$ = 0.54 ± 0.30 keV, ${\langle \log({\rm NH1}) \rangle }$ = 21.32 ${\pm}$ 0.71 and ${\langle \log({\rm NH2})\rangle }$ = 21.93 ${\pm}$ 1.36. We complement our X-ray results with an analysis of HST optical images and literature data on emission lines, radio compactness, and stellar population. After adding all these multiwavelength data, we conclude that evidence supports the AGN nature of their nuclear engine for 80% of the sample (66 out of 82 objects).

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4fd3652b7416a5e9939a8960413d569078d8be24

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Citations in the corpus

Massive molecular outflows and evidence for AGN feedback from CO observations (2013, unknown): “(1) Name; (2) optical classification; (3) redshift based on the CO spectrum; (4) star formation rate; (5) kinetic energy associated with the supernovae; (6) CO-to-H2 conversion factor adopted to infer MH2 from the CO(1–0) luminosity; (7) total mass of molecular gas; (8) AGN bolometric luminosity; (9”
The nature of LINER galaxies: Ubiquitous hot old stars and rare accreting black holes (2013, background): “…the central radiation in some LINER galaxies, which may even host a higher fraction of AGN compared to the general population of massive galaxies (González-Martín et al. 2009): the reason for this could in the simplest case be a selection effect due to the required presence of central reservoirs…”