Accretion rate in AGN and X-ray-to-optical flux ratio at z $\le$ 0.2

TL;DR

This study analyzes the relationship between X-ray-to-optical flux ratio and accretion rate in local active galaxies, revealing different behaviors in LINERs and Seyfert 2s that suggest varied accretion efficiencies and disc properties.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed comparison of X/O flux ratio and accretion rate across different AGN classes at low redshift, highlighting their distinct accretion characteristics.

Findings

Slight correlation between X/O flux ratio and accretion rate in the overall AGN sample.

LINERs show a slight correlation, while Seyfert 2 galaxies exhibit a slight anti-correlation.

Different accretion efficiencies and disc properties are suggested for LINERs and Seyfert 2 galaxies.

Abstract

We explored a sample of 545 local galaxies using data from the 3XMM-DR7 and SDSS-DR8 surveys. We carried out all analyses up to z\,$\sim$\,0.2, and we studied the relation between X/O flux ratio and accretion rate for different classes of active galaxies such as LINERs and Seyfert 2. We obtained a slight correlation between the two parameters if the whole sample of AGN is used. However, LINERs and Sy2 galaxies show different properties, slight correlation and slight anti-correlation, respectively. This could confirm that LINERs and Sy2 galaxies have different accretion efficiencies and maybe different accretion disc properties,as has been suggested previously. Keywords: galaxies - active; AGN - accretion rate; AGN - black hole masses; AGN - X-ray properties; AGN - optical properties