Shedding Light on the Compton-thick Active Galactic Nucleus in the Ultra-luminous Infrared Galaxy UGC 5101 with Broadband X-ray Spectroscopy

TL;DR

This study uses broadband X-ray spectroscopy to reveal a Compton-thick active galactic nucleus in UGC 5101, showing that many ULIRGs host AGNs that are not unusually X-ray faint compared to Seyferts.

Contribution

First broadband X-ray spectral analysis of UGC 5101 revealing detailed properties of its obscured AGN and its implications for ULIRG AGN characteristics.

Findings

Detection of a Compton-thick AGN with high obscuration

Intrinsic 2-10 keV luminosity is 2.5 times higher than previous estimates

ULIRGs can host AGNs with typical X-ray to line flux ratios, not necessarily X-ray faint

Abstract

We report the broadband X-ray spectra of the ultra-luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) UGC 5101 in the 0.25-100 keV band observed with Swift/Burst Alert Telescope (BAT), NuSTAR, Suzaku, XMM-Newton, and Chandra. A Compton-thick AGN obscured with a hydrogen column density of $\approx 1.3\times10^{24}$ cm$^{-2}$ is detected above 10 keV. A spectral fit with a numerical torus model favors a large half opening angle of the torus, $>41$ degrees, suggesting that the covering fraction of material heavily obscuring the X-ray source is moderate. The intrinsic 2-10 keV luminosity is determined to be $\approx 1.4\times 10^{43}$ erg s$^{-1}$, which is $\approx$2.5 times larger than the previous estimate using only data below 10 keV with a simple spectral model. We find that UGC 5101 shows the ratio between the [O IV] 26 $\mu$m line and 2-10 keV luminosities similar to those of normal Seyfert galaxies, along with other ULIRGs observed with NuSTAR, indicating that a significant portion of local ULIRGs are not really "X-ray faint" with respect to the flux of forbidden lines originating from the narrow line region (NLR). We propose a possible scenario that (1) the AGN in UGC 5101 is surrounded not only by Compton-thick matter located close to the equatorial plane but also by Compton-thin ($N_\mathrm{H} \sim 10^{21}$ cm$^{-2}$) matter in the torus-hole region and (2) it is accreting at a high Eddington rate with a steep UV to X-ray spectral energy distribution. Nevertheless, we argue that AGNs in many ULIRGs do not look extraordinary (i.e., extremely X-ray faint), as suggested by recent works, compared with normal Seyferts.