Hitomi Observation of Radio Galaxy NGC 1275: The First X-ray Microcalorimeter Spectroscopy of Fe-K{\alpha} Line Emission from an Active Galactic Nucleus

TL;DR

This study used Hitomi's X-ray microcalorimeter to detect and analyze the Fe-Kα line in NGC 1275, revealing its origin near the nucleus and excluding the accretion disk or broad line region as primary sources.

Contribution

First high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy of Fe-Kα emission in an active galactic nucleus using Hitomi/SXS, constraining its origin and physical properties.

Findings

Fe-Kα line detected with 5.4σ significance

Line velocity width constrained to 500-1600 km/s

Fe-Kα emission originates within ~1.6 kpc of the nucleus

Abstract

The origin of the narrow Fe-K{\alpha} fluorescence line at 6.4 keV from active galactic nuclei has long been under debate; some of the possible sites are the outer accretion disk, the broad line region, a molecular torus, or interstellar/intracluster media. In February-March 2016, we performed the first X-ray microcalorimeter spectroscopy with the Soft X-ray Spectrometer (SXS) onboard the Hitomi satellite of the Fanaroff-Riley type I radio galaxy NGC 1275 at the center of the Perseus cluster of galaxies. With the high energy resolution of ~5 eV at 6 keV achieved by Hitomi/SXS, we detected the Fe-K{\alpha} line with ~5.4 {\sigma} significance. The velocity width is constrained to be 500-1600 km s$^{-1}$ (FWHM for Gaussian models) at 90% confidence. The SXS also constrains the continuum level from the NGC 1275 nucleus up to ~20 keV, giving an equivalent width ~20 eV of the 6.4 keV line. Because the velocity width is narrower than that of broad H{\alpha} line of ~2750 km s$^{-1}$, we can exclude a large contribution to the line flux from the accretion disk and the broad line region. Furthermore, we performed pixel map analyses on the Hitomi/SXS data and image analyses on the Chandra archival data, and revealed that the Fe-K{\alpha} line comes from a region within ~1.6 kpc from the NGC 1275 core, where an active galactic nucleus emission dominates, rather than that from intracluster media. Therefore, we suggest that the source of the Fe-K{\alpha} line from NGC 1275 is likely a low-covering fraction molecular torus or a rotating molecular disk which probably extends from a pc to hundreds pc scale in the active galactic nucleus system.