Long-term X-ray stability and UV variability of the ionized absorption in NGC 3783

Abstract

We present the results of recent Chandra High-Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer and Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Origins Spectrograph observations of the nearby Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 3783 which shows a strong, non-varying X-ray warm absorber and physically related and kinematically varying UV absorption. We compare our new observations to high-resolution, high signal-to-noise archival data from 2001, allowing a unique investigation into the long-term variations of the absorption over a 12 yr period. We find no statistically significant changes in the physical properties of the X-ray absorber, but there is a significant drop of ~40% in the UV and X-ray flux, and a significant flattening of the underlying X-ray power-law slope. Large kinematic changes are seen in the UV absorbers, possibly due to radial deceleration of the material. Similar behavior is not observed in the X-ray data, likely due to its lower velocity resolution, which shows an outflow velocity of v ~ -655 km/s in both epochs. The narrow iron K-alpha emission line at 6.4 keV shows no variation between epochs, and its measured width places the material producing the line at a radial distance of ~0.03 pc from the central black hole.

20 pages, 10 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (5)

• A fast and long-lived outflow from the supermassive black hole in NGC 5548
• The variable X-ray spectrum of Markarian 766 - I. Principal components analysis
• The broad band spectral variability of MCG-6-30-15 observed by NuSTAR and XMM-Newton
• Tracing a Disk Wind in NGC 3516
• The warm absorber in NGC 5548: The lean years

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Space Telescope and Optical Reverberation Mapping Project. I. Ultraviolet Observations of the Seyfert 1 Galaxy NGC 5548 with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on Hubble Space Telescope
• Chasing obscuration in type-I AGN: discovery of an eclipsing clumpy wind at the outer broad-line region of NGC 3783
• New Insights in the Spectral Variability and Physical Conditions of the X-ray Absorbers in NGC 4151
• Delving into the depths of NGC 3783 with XRISM. I. Kinematic and ionization structure of the highly ionized outflows
• Time-dependent photoionization spectroscopy of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 3783
• Joint Fit of Warm Absorbers in COS & HETG Spectra of NGC 3783
• Ionization Distributions in Outflows of Active Galaxies: Universal Trends and Prospect of Future XRISM Observations