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NuStar Hard X-Ray View of Low-luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei: High-energy Cutoff and Truncated Thin Disk

2019; IOP Publishing; Volume: 870; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3847/1538-4357/aaf38b

1538-4357

George Younes, A. Ptak, Luis C. Ho, Fu‐Guo Xie, Yuichi Terasima, Feng Yuan, Daniela Huppenkothen, Mihoko Yukita,

Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena

We report the analysis of simultaneous XMM-Newton+NuSTAR observations of two low-luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei (LLAGN), NGC 3998 and NGC 4579. We do not detect any significant variability in either source over the ~3 day length of the NuSTAR observations. The broad-band 0.5-60 keV spectrum of NGC 3998 is best fit with a cutoff power-law, while the one for NGC 4579 is best fit with a combination of a hot thermal plasma model, a power-law, and a blend of Gaussians to fit an Fe complex observed between 6 and 7 keV. Our main spectral results are the following: (1) neither source shows any reflection hump with a $3\sigma$ reflection fraction upper-limits $R<0.3$ and $R<0.18$ for NGC 3998 and NGC 4579, respectively; (2) the 6-7 keV line complex in NGC 4579 could either be fit with a narrow Fe K line at 6.4 keV and a moderately broad Fe XXV line, or 3 relatively narrow lines, which includes contribution from Fe XXVI; (3) NGC 4579 flux is 60% brighter than previously detected with XMM-Newton, accompanied by a hardening in the spectrum; (4) we measure a cutoff energy $E_{\rm cut}=107_{-18}^{+27}$ keV in NGC 3998, which represents the lowest and best constrained high-energy cutoff ever measured for an LLAGN; (5) NGC 3998 spectrum is consistent with a Comptonization model with either a sphere ($\tau\approx3\pm1$) or slab ($\tau\approx1.2\pm0.6$) geometry, corresponding to plasma temperatures between 20 and 150 keV. We discuss these results in the context of hard X-ray emission from bright AGN, other LLAGN, and hot accretion flow models.