Chandra unveils a binary Active Galactic Nucleus in Mrk463

Abstract

We analyse Chandra, XMM-Newton and HST data of the double-nucleus Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxy (ULIRG), Mrk463. The Chandra detection of two luminous (${\mathrm{L}}_{2-10keV}=1.5\times 10^{43}$ and $3.8\times 10^{42}$ erg cm${}^{-2}$ s${}^{-1}$), unresolved nuclei in Mrk~463 indicates that this galaxy hosts a binary AGN, with a projected separation of $\simeq 3.8$ kpc ($3.83\pm 0.01$ arcsec). While the East nucleus was already known to be a Seyfert 2 (and this is further confirmed by our Chandra detection of a neutral iron line), this is the first unambiguous evidence in favour of the AGN nature of the West nucleus. Mrk463 is therefore the clearest case so far for a binary AGN, after NGC6240.

7 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (4)

• On the X-ray, optical emission line and black hole mass properties of local Seyfert galaxies
• On the origin of soft X-rays in obscured AGN: answers from high-resolution spectroscopy with XMM-Newton
• X-ray nature of the LINER nuclear sources
• XMM-Newton view of galaxy pairs: activation of quiescent black holes?

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• An Evolutionary Paradigm for Dusty Active Galaxies at Low Redshift
• Discovery of Radio Emission from the Quasar SDSS J1536+0441, a Candidate Binary Black-Hole System