The outflow in Mrk 509: A method to calibrate XMM-Newton EPIC-pn and RGS

Abstract

We have analyzed three XMM-Newton observations of the Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 509, with the goal to detect small variations in the ionized outflow properties. Such measurements are limited by the quality of the cross-calibration between RGS, the best instrument to characterize the spectrum, and EPIC-pn, the best instrument to characterize the variability. For all three observations we are able to improve the relative calibration of RGS and pn consistently to 4 %. In all observations we detect three different outflow components and, thanks to our accurate cross-calibration we are able to detect small differences in the ionization parameter and column density in the highest ionized component of the outflow. This constrains the location of this component of the outflow to within 0.5 pc of the central source. Our method for modeling the relative effective area is not restricted to just this source and can in principle be extended to other types of sources as well.

11 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (4)

• High-resolution X-ray spectroscopy of the low and high states of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 4051 with Chandra LETGS
• The XMM-Newton RGS spectrum of the high luminosity Seyfert 1 galaxy Markarian 509
• The warm absorber in NGC 5548: The lean years
• Effective area calibration of the reflection grating spectrometers of XMM-Newton. II. X-ray spectroscopy of DA white dwarfs

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Multiwavelength campaign on Mrk 509. III. The 600 ks RGS spectrum: unravelling the inner region of an AGN
• Multiwavelength campaign on Mrk 509 VIII. Location of the X-ray absorber
• Multiwavelength campaign on Mrk 509. I. Variability and spectral energy distribution
• Multiwavelength campaign on Mrk 509. II. Analysis of high-quality Reflection Grating Spectrometer spectra
• Multiwavelength campaign on Mrk 509. V. Chandra-LETGS observation of the ionized absorber
• A Case for a Binary Black Hole System Revealed via Quasi-Periodic Outflows
• Suzaku broad-band observations of the Seyfert 1 galaxies Mrk 509 and Mrk 841
• Transient obscuration event captured in NGC 3227 IV. Origin of the obscuring cloud variability