Transient and Highly Polarized Double-Peaked H-alpha Emission in the Seyfert 2 Nucleus of NGC 2110

Abstract

We have discovered an extremely broad, double-peaked H-alpha emission line in the polarized flux spectrum of NGC 2110, establishing that this well-studied Seyfert 2 galaxy contains a disk-like hidden broad-line region (BLR). Several properties of NGC 2110 suggest that it is an obscured twin of Arp 102B, the prototypical double-peaked emission-line active galactic nucleus (AGN). A comparison between our data and previous spectra of NGC 2110 indicates that the double-peaked H-alpha feature is transient. The presence of a disk-like BLR in NGC 2110 has important implications for AGNs: it expands the range of properties exhibited by Seyfert 2 galaxies, and the fact that the BLR is obscured by a torus-like structure provides the first evidence that double-peaked emitters and classical Seyfert nuclei may have the same basic parsec-scale geometry.

5 pages, including 3 postscript figures. Uses emulateapj. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters

References in corpus (3)

• Long-Term Profile Variability of Double Peaked Emission Lines in Active Galactic Nuclei
• The Chandra, HST, and VLA View of the Circumnuclear Extended Emission in the Narrow Emission Line Galaxy NGC 2110
• The X-ray Properties of Active Galactic Nuclei with Double-Peaked Balmer Lines

Cited by in corpus (9)

• The Origin of the Silicate Emission Features in the Seyfert 2 Galaxy, NGC 2110
• The variable and non-variable X-ray absorbers in Compton-thin type-II Active Galactic Nuclei
• A New Black Hole Mass Estimate for Obscured Active Galactic Nuclei
• The Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 2110: hard X-ray emission observed by NuSTAR and variability of the iron K$\alpha$ line
• AGN X-ray irradiation of CO gas in NGC 2110 revealed by $Chandra$ and ALMA
• Hidden Double-Peaked Emitters in Seyfert 2 Galaxies
• X-ray Photons in the CO 2-1 'Lacuna' of NGC 2110
• Polarization in broad emission lines of Active Galactic Nuclei
• X-ray polarization observations of NGC 2110 with IXPE