X-ray spectral variability in NGC 3783

Abstract

NGC 3783 was observed for approximately 210ks by Suzaku and in this time showed significant spectral and flux variability at both short (20ks) and long (100ks) time scales. The full observation is found to consist of approximately six "spectral periods" where the behaviour of the soft (0.3-1.0keV) and hard (2-10keV) bands are somewhat distinct. Using a variety of methods we find that the strong warm absorber present in this source does not change on these time scales, confirming that the broad-band variability is intrinsic to the central source. The time resolved difference-spectra are well modelled with an absorbed powerlaw below 10keV, but show an additional hard excess at ~20keV in the latter stages of the observation. This suggests that, in addition to the variable powerlaw, there is a further variable component that varies with time but not monotonically with flux. We show that a likely interpretation is that this further component is associated with variations in the reflection fraction or possibly ionization state of the accretion disk a few gravitational radii from the black hole.

Accepted for publication in ApJ. 29 pages, 15 figures

References in corpus (4)

• An XMM-Newton survey of broad iron lines in Seyfert galaxies
• Relativistic X-ray Lines from the Inner Accretion Disks Around Black Holes
• Broad emission lines for negatively spinning black holes
• The Spin of the Supermassive Black Hole in NGC 3783

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