Metallicity measurements in AGNs

TL;DR

This paper presents the first precise metallicity measurements in AGN nuclei using multi-instrument observations, revealing super-solar metallicities and challenging traditional chemical enrichment models.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method combining FUSE, HST, and Chandra data to measure AGN metallicity accurately, highlighting the importance of OVI observations.

Findings

Measured super-solar metallicities in two AGNs

N/C ratio does not scale with metallicity

Chemical enrichment in AGN nuclei may differ from traditional models

Abstract

Measuring metallicity in the nuclear regions of AGNs is difficult because only a few lines are observed and ionization correction becomes a major problem. Nitrogen to carbon ratio has been widely used as an indicator for metallicity, but precise measurements have been lacking. We made such measurements for the first time using a wide baseline of ionization states with observations from FUSE, HST and Chandra. OVI observations with FUSE were crucial in this effort. We measured super-solar metallicities in two AGNs and found that N/C does not scale with metallicity. This suggests that chemical enrichment scenario in nuclear regions of galaxies may be different from traditional models of metal enrichment.