RXTE and BeppoSAX Observations of MCG -5-23-16: Reflection From Distant Cold Material

Abstract

We examine the spectral variability of the Seyfert 1.9 galaxy MCG -5-23-16 using RXTE and BeppoSAX observations spanning 2 years from April 1996 to April 1998. During the first year the X-ray source brightens by a factor of ~25% on timescales of days to months. During this time, the reprocessed continuum emission seen with RXTE does not respond measurably to the continuum increase. However, by the end of the second year during the BeppoSAX epoch the X-ray source has faded again. This time, the reprocessed emission has also faded, indicating that the reprocessed flux has responded to the continuum. If these effects are caused by time delays due to the distance between the X-ray source and the reprocessing region, we derive a light crossing time of between ~1 light day and ~1.5 light years. This corresponds to a distance of 0.001 pc to 0.55 pc, which implies that the reprocessed emission originates between 3x10^15 cm and 1.6x10^18 cm from the X-ray source. In other words, the reprocessing in MCG -5-23-16 is not dominated by the inner regions of a standard accretion disk.

Accepted for publication in ApJ. 17 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (16)

• Ubiquitous variability of X-ray absorbing column densities in Seyfert 2 Galaxies
• The Contribution of the Obscuring Torus to the X--Ray Spectrum of Seyfert Galaxies: A Test for the Unification Model
• Correlation between Compton reflection and X-ray slope in Seyferts and X-ray binaries
• Compton reflection and iron fluorescence in BeppoSAX observations of Seyfert type 1 galaxies
• Simultaneous EUVE/ASCA/RXTE Observations of NGC 5548
• The central kiloparsec of starbursts and AGN: The La Palma connection
• Long-Term X-ray Spectral Variability in Seyfert 1 Galaxies
• The X-ray variability of the Seyfert~1 galaxy MCG-6-30-15 from long ASCA and RXTE observations
• The relativistic iron line profile in the Seyfert 1 Galaxy IC4329a
• Detecting Compton Reflection and a Broad Iron Line in MCG-5-23-16 with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer
• XMM-Newton observations of Broad FeKalpha emission from a Seyfert 1.9 galaxy MCG-5-23-16
• RXTE observations of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 5506: evidence for reflection from disk and torus
• Reflection at large distance from the central engine in Seyferts
• BeppoSAX Observations of the Maser Sy2 Galaxy: ESO103-G35
• RXTE observations of Seyfert-2 galaxies: evidence for spectral variability
• BeppoSAX observations of the Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 galaxy RX J1702.5+3247

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Parsec-scale dust distributions in Seyfert galaxies - Results of the MIDI AGN snapshot survey
• The NuSTAR View of Nearby Compton-thick AGN: The Cases of NGC 424, NGC 1320 and IC 2560
• Relativistic Iron K Emission and absorption in the Seyfert 1.9 galaxy MCG-5-23-16
• Discovery of Fe K-alpha X-ray reverberation around the black holes in MCG-5-23-16 and NGC 7314
• Revealing the High Energy Emission from the Obscured Seyfert Galaxy MCG -5-23-16 with Suzaku
• Coronal Properties of the Seyfert 1.9 Galaxy MCG -05-23-016 Determined from Hard X-ray Spectroscopy with NuSTAR
• Observations of MCG-5-23-16 with Suzaku, XMM-Newton and NuSTAR: Disk tomography and Compton hump reverberation
• Polarization constraints on the X-ray corona in Seyfert Galaxies: MCG-05-23-16
• XMM-Newton observations of bright ROSAT selected active galactic nuclei with low intrinsic absorption
• INTEGRAL observations of AGN in the Galactic Plane
• INTEGRAL observations of AGN obscured by the Galactic Plane
• Downscattering due to Wind Outflows in Compact X-ray Sources: Theory and Interpretation
• The efficient low-mass Seyfert MCG-05-23-016
• Spectro-polarimetric study to constrain accretion-ejection properties of MCG-5-23-16 using IXPE and NuSTAR observations