Centaurus A at Hard X-rays and Soft Gamma-rays

Abstract

Centaurus A, at a distance of less than 4 Mpc, is the nearest radio-loud AGN. Its emission is detected from radio to very-high energy gamma-rays. Despite the fact that Cen A is one of the best studied extragalactic objects the origin of its hard X-ray and soft gamma-ray emission (100 keV < E < 50 MeV) is still uncertain. Observations with high spatial resolution in the adjacent soft X-ray and hard gamma-ray regimes suggest that several distinct components such as a Seyfert-like nucleus, relativistic jets, and even luminous X-ray binaries within Cen A may contribute to the total emission in the MeV regime that has been detected with low spatial resolution. As the Spectral Energy Distribution of Cen A has its second maximum around 1 MeV, this energy range plays an important role in modeling the emission of (this) AGN. As there will be no satellite mission in the near future that will cover this energies with higher spatial resolution and better sensitivity, an overview of all existing hard X-ray and soft gamma-ray measurements of Cen A is presented here defining the present knowledge on Centaurus A in the MeV energy range.

8 pages, 5 figures, article for conference proceedings "The Many Faces of Centaurus A"; accepted for publication in PASA

References in corpus (7)

• Fermi Large Area Telescope Bright Gamma-ray Source List
• Discovery of very high energy gamma-ray emission from Centaurus A with H.E.S.S
• The mass of the black hole in Centaurus A from SINFONI AO-assisted integral-field observations of stellar kinematics
• High-energy Particle Acceleration and Production of Ultra-high-energy Cosmic Rays in the Giant Lobes of Centaurus A
• INTEGRAL SPI All-Sky View in Soft Gamma Rays: Study of Point Source and Galactic Diffuse Emissions
• Soft gamma-ray sources detected by INTEGRAL
• Astrophysics with Radioactive Atomic Nuclei

Cited by in corpus (7)

• First X-ray-Based Statistical Tests for Clumpy-Torus Models: Eclipse Events from 230 Years of Monitoring of Seyfert AGN
• The radio continuum structure of Centaurus A at 1.4 GHz
• The Hard X-ray Emission of Cen A
• The $\gamma$-ray spectrum of the core of Centaurus A as observed with H.E.S.S. and Fermi-LAT
• Deep Observation of the Giant Radio Lobes of Centaurus A with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• VHE Gamma-Ray Induced Pair Cascades in the Radiation Fields of Dust Tori of AGN: Application to Cen A
• Internal gamma gamma-opacity in Active Galactic Nuclei and the consequences for the TeV observations of M87 and Cen A