paper

Magnetized Disk-Winds in NGC 3783

arXiv:1712.08181 · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aaa3f6

Abstract

We analyze a 900-ks stacked Chandra/HETG spectrum of NGC 3783 in the context of magnetically-driven accretion-disk wind models in an effort to provide tight constraints on the global conditions of the underlying absorbers. Motivated by the earlier measurements of its absorption measure distribution (AMD) indicating X-ray-absorbing ionic columns that decrease slowly with decreasing ionization parameter, we employ 2D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) disk-wind models to describe the global outflow. We compute its photoionization structure along with the wind kinematic properties allowing us to further calculate in a self-consistent fashion the shapes of the major X-ray absorption lines. With the wind radial density profile determined by the AMD, the profiles of the ensemble of the observed absorption features are determined by the two global parameters of the MHD wind; i.e. disk inclination θ_obs and wind density normalization n_o. Considering the most significant absorption features in the (~1.8A-20A) range, we show that the MHD-wind is best described by n(r)~6.9e11(r/ro)^-1.15 [cm^-3] and θ_obs=44deg. We argue that winds launched by X-ray heating, radiation pressure or even MHD winds but with steeper radial density profiles are strongly disfavored by data. Considering the properties of Fe K band absorption features (i.e. Fe xxv and Fe xxvi), while typically prominent in the AGN X-ray spectra, they appear to be weak in NGC 3783. For the specific parameters of our model obtained by fitting the AMD and the rest of absorption features, these features are found to be weak in agreement with observation.

37 pages, 7 figs, 3 tables; accepted to ApJ

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