Browsing by Author "Piconcelli, E."

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey XXVII: scattered X-Ray radiation in obscured active galactic nuclei
    (2021) Gupta, K. K.; Ricci, C.; Tortosa, A.; Ueda, Y.; Kawamuro, T.; Koss, M.; Trakhtenbrot, B.; Oh, K.; Bauer, F. E.; Ricci, F.; Privon, G. C.; Zappacosta, L.; Stern, D.; Kakkad, D.; Piconcelli, E.; Veilleux, S.; Mushotzky, R.; Caglar, T.; Ichikawa, K.; Elagali, A.; Powell, M. C.; Urry, C. M.; Harrison, F.
    Accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs), also known as active galactic nuclei (AGN), are generally surrounded by large amounts of gas and dust. This surrounding material reprocesses the primary X-ray emission produced close to the SMBH and gives rise to several components in the broadband X-ray spectra of AGN, including a power-law possibly associated with Thomson-scattered radiation. In this work, we study the properties of this scattered component for a sample of 386 hard-X-ray-selected, nearby (z similar to 0.03) obscured AGN from the 70-month Swift/BAT catalogue. We investigate how the fraction of Thomson-scattered radiation correlates with different physical properties of AGN, such as line-of-sight column density, X-ray luminosity, black hole mass, and Eddington ratio. We find a significant negative correlation between the scattering fraction and the column density. Based on a large number of spectral simulations, we exclude the possibility that this anticorrelation is due to degeneracies between the parameters. The negative correlation also persists when considering different ranges of luminosity, black hole mass, and Eddington ratio. We discuss how this correlation might be either due to the angle dependence of the Thomson cross-section or to more obscured sources having a higher covering factor of the torus. We also find a positive correlation between the scattering fraction and the ratio of [OIII] lambda 5007 to X-ray luminosity. This result is consistent with previous studies and suggests that the Thomson-scattered component is associated with the narrow-line region.
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    Galaxy-scale ionised winds driven by ultra-fast outflows in two nearby quasars
    (2020) Marasco, A.; Cresci, G.; Nardini, E.; Mannucci, F.; Marconi, A.; Tozzi, P.; Tozzi, G.; Amiri, A.; Venturi, G.; Piconcelli, E.; Lanzuisi, G.; Tombesi, F.; Mingozzi, M.; Perna, M.; Carniani, S.; Brusa, M.; Alighieri, S. di Serego
    We used MUSE adaptive optics data in narrow field mode to study the properties of the ionised gas in MR 2251-178 and PG 1126-041, two nearby (z similar or equal to 0.06) bright quasars (QSOs) hosting sub-pc scale ultra-fast outflows (UFOs) detected in the X-ray band. We decomposed the optical emission from diffuse gas into a low- and a high-velocity components. The former is characterised by a clean, regular velocity field and a low (similar to 80 km s(-1)) velocity dispersion. It traces regularly rotating gas in PG 1126-041, while in MR 2251-178 it is possibly associated with tidal debris from a recent merger or flyby. The other component is found to be extended up to a few kpc from the nuclei, and shows a high (similar to 800 km s(-1)) velocity dispersion and a blue-shifted mean velocity, as is expected from outflows driven by active galactic nuclei (AGN). We estimate mass outflow rates up to a few M-circle dot yr(-1) and kinetic efficiencies L-KIN/L-BOL between 1-4x10(-4), in line with those of galaxies hosting AGN of similar luminosities. The momentum rates of these ionised outflows are comparable to those measured for the UFOs at sub-pc scales, which is consistent with a momentum-driven wind propagation. Pure energy-driven winds are excluded unless about 100x additional momentum is locked in massive molecular winds. In comparing the outflow properties of our sources with those of a small sample of well-studied QSOs hosting UFOs from the literature, we find that winds seem to systematically lie either in a momentum-driven or an energy-driven regime, indicating that these two theoretical models bracket the physics of AGN-driven winds very well.
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    The WISSH quasars project : IX. Cold gas content and environment of luminous QSOs at z ∼2.4-4.7
    (2021) Bischetti, M.; Feruglio, C.; Piconcelli, E.; Duras, F.; Perez-Torres, M.; Herrero, R.; Venturi, Giacomo; Carniani, S.; Bruni, G.; Gavignaud, I.; Testa, V.; Bongiorno, A.; Brusa, M.; Circosta, C.; Cresci, G.; D'Odorico, V.; Maiolino, R.; Marconi, A.; Mingozzi, M.; Pappalardo, C.; Perna, M.; Traianou, E.; Travascio, A.; Vietri, G.; Zappacosta, L.; Fiore, F.
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    Universal bolometric corrections for active galactic nuclei over seven luminosity decades
    (2020) Duras, F.; Bongiorno, A.; Ricci, F.; Piconcelli, E.; Shankar, F.; Lusso, E.; Bianchi, S.; Fiore, F.; Maiolino, R.; Marconi, A.; Onori, F.; Sani, E.; Schneider, R.; Vignali, C.; La Franca, F.
    Context. The AGN bolometric correction is a key element for understanding black hole (BH) demographics and computing accurate BH accretion histories from AGN luminosities. However, current estimates still differ from each other by up to a factor of two to three, and rely on extrapolations at the lowest and highest luminosities.