The nuclear environment of the NLS1 Mrk 335: obscuration of the X-ray line emission by a variable outflow

TL;DR

This study analyzes the low-flux state of the Seyfert galaxy Mrk 335 using multiwavelength observations, revealing obscuration effects and changes in ionization and absorption features related to a variable outflow.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the obscuration and ionization changes in the nuclear environment of Mrk 335 during a low flux state, highlighting the role of a variable outflow.

Findings

Soft X-ray emission lines dominate at low energies.

The Ovii triplet line ratio changes significantly over 6 months.

New absorption features appear in UV spectra during low flux.

Abstract

We present XMM-Newton, NuSTAR, Swift and Hubble Space Telescope observations of the Narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 335 in a protracted low state in 2018 and 2019. The X-ray flux is at the lowest level so far observed, and the extremely low continuum flux reveals a host of soft X-ray emission lines from photoionised gas. The simultaneous UV flux drop suggests that the variability is intrinsic to the source, and we confirm this with broad-band X-ray spectroscopy. The dominance of the soft X-ray lines at low energies and distant reflection at high energies is therefore due to the respective emission regions being located far enough from the X-ray source that they have not yet seen the flux drop. Between the two XMM-Newton spectra, taken 6 months apart, the emission line ratio in the Ovii triplet changes drastically. We attribute this change to a drop in the ionisation of intervening warm absorption, which means that the absorber must cover a large fraction of the line emitting region, and extend much further from the black hole than previously assumed. The HST spectrum, taken in 2018, shows that new absorption features have appeared on the blue wings of Ciii*, Ly{\alpha}, Nv, Siiv and Civ, likely due to absorbing gas cooling in response to the low flux state.