Contribution of the accretion disk, hot corona, and obscuring torus to the luminosity of Seyfert galaxies: INTEGRAL and Spitzer observations

TL;DR

This study quantifies the contributions of the accretion disk, corona, and torus to the luminosity of Seyfert galaxies using combined INTEGRAL and Spitzer observations, revealing the relative energy outputs and their implications for SMBH growth.

Contribution

First comprehensive analysis combining hard X-ray and mid-infrared data for a complete sample of Seyfert galaxies, elucidating the energy distribution among accretion components.

Findings

HX radiation accounts for a large fraction of AGN bolometric luminosity.

The intrinsic disk luminosity is proportional to the corona luminosity, with a ratio around 1.6.

The Compton temperature varies between 2 and 6 keV, influencing SMBH growth regulation.

Abstract

We estimate the relative contributions of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) accretion disk, corona, and obscuring torus to the bolometric luminosity of Seyfert galaxies, using Spizter mid-infrared (MIR) observations of a complete sample of 68 nearby active galactic nuclei from the INTEGRAL all-sky hard X-ray (HX) survey. This is the first HX-selected (above 15 keV) sample of AGNs with complementary high angular resolution, high signal to noise, MIR data. Correcting for the host galaxy contribution, we find a correlation between HX and MIR luminosities: L_MIR L_HX^(0.74+/-0.06). Assuming that the observed MIR emission is radiation from an accretion disk reprocessed in a surrounding dusty torus that subtends a solid angle decreasing with increasing luminosity (as inferred from the declining fraction of obscured AGNs), the intrinsic disk luminosity, L_D, is approximately proportional to the luminosity of the corona in the 2-300 keV energy band, L_C, with the L_D/L_C ratio varying by a factor of 2.1 around a mean value of 1.6. This ratio is a factor of ~2 smaller than for typical quasars producing the cosmic X-ray background (CXB). Therefore, over three orders of magnitude in luminosity, HX radiation carries a large, and roughly comparable, fraction of the bolometric output of AGNs. We estimate the cumulative bolometric luminosity density of local AGNs at ~(1-3)x10^40 erg/s/Mpc^3. Finally, the Compton temperature ranges between kT_c~2 and ~6 keV for nearby AGNs, compared to kT_c~2 keV for typical quasars, confirming that radiative heating of interstellar gas can play an important role in regulating SMBH growth.