Emission and Absorption Properties of Low-Mass Type 2 Active Galaxies with XMM-Newton

TL;DR

This study uses XMM-Newton to analyze low-mass, low-luminosity type 2 active galaxies, revealing moderate obscuration and supporting unified models at the lowest Seyfert luminosities.

Contribution

First X-ray spectral analysis of low-mass, low-luminosity type 2 Seyfert galaxies, demonstrating obscuration consistent with unified models at very low luminosities.

Findings

Most galaxies show moderate X-ray absorption (~10^22 cm^-2).

Type 2 galaxies are X-ray faint compared to Seyfert 1s, indicating obscuration.

One galaxy is a low-luminosity analog of NGC 4395 with significant X-ray absorption.

Abstract

We present XMM-Newton observations of four low-redshift Seyfert galaxies selected to have low host luminosities (M_g>-20 mag) and small stellar velocity dispersions (sigma_star<45 km/s), which are among the smallest stellar velocity dispersions found in any active galaxies. These galaxies show weak or no broad optical emission lines and have likely black hole masses <10^6 M_sun. Three out of four objects were detected with >3sigma significance in ~25 ks exposures and two observations had high enough signal-to-noise ratios for rudimentary spectral analysis. We calculate hardness ratios (-0.43 to 0.01) for the three detected objects and use them to estimate photon indices in the range of Gamma=1.1-1.8. Relative to [OIII], the type 2 objects are X-ray faint in comparison with Seyfert 1 galaxies, suggesting that the central engines are obscured. We estimate the intrinsic absorption of each object under the assumption that the [OIII] emission line luminosities are correlated with the unabsorbed X-ray luminosity. The results are consistent with moderate (N_H~10^22 cm^-2) absorption over the Galactic values in three of the four objects, which might explain the non-detection of broad-line emission in optical spectra. One object in our sample, SDSS J110912.40+612346.7, is a near identical type 2 counterpart of the late-type Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 4395. While the two objects have very similar [OIII] luminosities, the type 2 object has an X-ray/[OIII] flux ratio nearly an order of magnitude lower than NGC 4395. The most plausible explanation for this difference is absorption of the primary X-ray continuum of the type 2 object, providing an indication that obscuration-based unified models of active galaxies can apply even at the lowest luminosities seen among Seyfert nuclei, down to L_bol~10^40-10^41 erg/s.