A Compton-thick nucleus in the dual active galactic nuclei of Mrk 266

August 2020 • 2020A&A...640A..95I

Authors • Iwasawa, K. • Ricci, C. • Privon, G. C. • Torres-Albà, N. • Inami, H. • Charmandaris, V. • Evans, A. S. • Mazzarella, J. M. • Díaz-Santos, T.

Abstract • We present the results from our analysis of NuSTAR data of the luminous infrared galaxy Mrk 266, which contains two nuclei, south-western (SW) and north-eastern (NE), which were resolved in previous Chandra imaging. Combining this with the Chandra data, we intepret the hard X-ray spectrum obtained from a NuSTAR observation to result from a steeply rising flux from a Compton-thick active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the SW nucleus which is very faint in the Chandra band, confirming the previous claim. This hard X-ray component is dominated by reflection, and its intrinsic 2-10 keV luminosity is likely to be ∼1 × 10⁴³ erg s^-1. Although it is bright in soft X-ray, only a moderately absorbed NE nucleus has a 2-10 keV luminosity of 4 × 10⁴¹ erg s^-1, placing it in the low-luminosity AGN class. These results have implications for understanding the detectability and duty cycles of emission from dual AGN in heavily obscured mergers.

Links

• PREPRINT http://arxiv.org/abs/2007.03258
• NED https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/uri/NED::InRefcode/2020A%26A...640A..95I
• POSTSCRIPT https://www.aanda.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202038513/postscript
• ELECTR https://doi.org/10.1051%2F0004-6361%2F202038513
• SIMBAD http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbo.pl?bibcode=2020A%26A...640A..95I
• PDF https://www.aanda.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202038513/pdf
• DATA http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/W3Browse/biblink.pl?code=2020A%26A...640A..95I
• DATA https://cda.harvard.edu/chaser?obsid=2044