Spatially resolved Fe K spectroscopy of NGC 4945

Abstract

We present the imaging and spectroscopic analysis of the combined Chandra ACIS-S observations of the Compton-thick Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 4945. We performed a spatially-resolved spectroscopy of the circumnuclear environment of the source, picturing the innermost 200 parsecs around the highly absorbed nucleus. The additional 200 ks ACIS-S data with respect to the previous campaign allowed us to map with even greater detail the central structure of this source and to discover an enhanced iron emission in the innermost nuclear region, with respect to the associated Compton reflection continuum. We revealed that the Equivalent Width of the iron K$\alpha$ line is spatially variable (ranging from 0.5 to 3 keV), on scales of tens of parsecs, likely due to the ionization state and orientation effects of the reprocessing material, with respect to the central X-ray illuminating source. A clump of highly ionized Fe XXV He-$\alpha$ is also detected, 40 parsecs east to the nucleus. When observations taken years apart are considered, the central unresolved reflected emission is found to remain constant.

10 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (3)

• The 2-79 keV X-ray Spectrum of the Circinus Galaxy with NuSTAR, XMM-Newton and Chandra: a Fully Compton-Thick AGN
• The variable hard X-ray emission of NGC4945 as observed by NuSTAR
• X-ray reflection in the nearby Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 1068

Cited by in corpus (12)

• A Chandra and ALMA Study of X-ray-irradiated Gas in the Central ~100 pc of the Circinus Galaxy
• Localizing narrow Fe K$\alpha$ emission within bright AGN
• AGN X-ray irradiation of CO gas in NGC 2110 revealed by $Chandra$ and ALMA
• The kpc Scale Fe K$\alpha$ Emission in the Compton Thin Seyfert 2 Galaxy NGC 4388 resolved by Chandra
• X-ray signatures of the polar dusty gas in AGN
• The lively accretion disk in NGC 2992. II. The 2019/2021 X-ray monitoring campaigns
• X-ray supernova remnants in the starburst region of M82
• Revisit the Circumnuclear X-ray Emission of NGC 2992 in a Historically Low State
• Hot Gas Outflow Properties of the Starburst Galaxy NGC 4945
• Active Galactic Nuclei and their demography through cosmic time
• Extreme X-ray Reflection in the Nucleus of the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 5033
• Revisiting Disk Winds in Active Galactic Nuclei as an Origin of Cosmic Gamma-ray and Neutrino Backgrounds