Iron K and Compton hump reverberation in SWIFT J2127.4+5654 and NGC 1365 revealed by NuSTAR and XMM-Newton

TL;DR

This study extends X-ray reverberation lag measurements to higher energies in two Seyfert galaxies using NuSTAR, confirming the origin of Fe K and Compton hump lags at small radii and revealing complex absorption effects.

Contribution

It provides the first broadband lag measurements including the Compton hump, confirming its origin at small radii and demonstrating NuSTAR's capability to extend reverberation studies.

Findings

NuSTAR confirms Fe K lag detections at higher energies.

Evidence for Compton hump lags at small radii.

Negative low-frequency lag in NGC 1365 due to eclipsing clouds.

Abstract

In the past five years, a flurry of X-ray reverberation lag measurements of accreting supermassive black holes have been made using the XMM-Newton telescope in the 0.3-10 keV energy range. In this work, we use the NuSTAR telescope to extend the lag analysis up to higher energies for two Seyfert galaxies, SWIFT J2127.4+5654 and NGC 1365. X-ray reverberation lags are due to the light travel time delays between the direct continuum emission and the reprocessed emission from the inner radii of an ionised accretion disc. XMM-Newton has been particularly adept at measuring the lag associated with the broad Fe K emission line, where the gravitationally redshifted wing of the line is observed to respond before the line centroid at 6.4 keV, produced at larger radii. Now we use NuSTAR to probe the lag at higher energies, where the spectrum shows clear evidence for Compton reflection, known as the Compton 'hump'. The XMM-Newton data show Fe K lags in both SWIFT J2127.4+5654 and NGC 1365. The NuSTAR data provide independent confirmation of these Fe K lags, and also show evidence for the corresponding Compton hump lags, especially in SWIFT J2127.4+5654. These broadband lag measurements confirm that the Compton hump and Fe K lag are produced at small radii. At low-frequencies in NGC 1365, where the spectrum shows evidence for eclipsing clouds in the line of sight, we find a clear negative (not positive) lag from 2--10 keV, which can be understood as the decrease in column density from a neutral eclipsing cloud moving out of our line of sight during the observation.