Article

High Density Reflection Spectroscopy – II. The density of the inner black hole accretion disc in AGN

Jiachen JiangInstitute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UKA. C. FabianInstitute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UKThomas DauserDr. Karl Remeis-Observatory and Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics, Sternwartstr. 7, D-96049 Bamberg, GermanyLuigi GalloDepartment of Astronomy and Physics, Saint Mary’s University, 923 Robie Street, Halifax, NS B3H 3C 3, CanadaJavier A. GarcíaCahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USAErin KaraDepartment of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-2421, USAM. L. ParkerEuropean Space Agency (ESA), European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), E-28691 Villanueva de la Cañada, SpainJohn A. TomsickSpace Sciences Laboratory, 7 Gauss Way, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-7450, USAD. J. WaltonInstitute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UKC. S. ReynoldsInstitute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK

2019en

ABI

Abstract

ABSTRACT We present a high density disc reflection spectral analysis of a sample of 17 Seyfert 1 galaxies to study the inner disc densities at different black hole mass scales and accretion rates. All the available XMM–Newton observations in the archive are used. OM observations in the optical/UV band are used to estimate their accretion rates. We find that 65 per cent of sources in our sample show a disc density significantly higher than ne = 1015 cm−3, which was assumed in previous reflection-based spectral analyses. The best-fitting disc densities show an anticorrelation with black hole mass and mass accretion rate. High density disc reflection model can successfully explain the soft excess emission and significantly reduce inferred iron abundances. We also compare our black hole spin and disc inclination angle measurements with previous analyses.

Identifiers

DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz2326

Citations and references

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