A hard look at local, optically-selected, obscured Seyfert galaxies
E. S. Kammoun, J. M. Miller, M. Koss, K. Oh, A. Zoghbi, R. F., Mushotzky, D. Barret, E. Behar, W. N. Brandt, L. W. Brenneman, J. S. Kaastra,, A. M. Lohfink, D. Proga, D. Stern

TL;DR
This study analyzes the X-ray spectra of 19 obscured Seyfert galaxies using multiple telescopes, revealing high obscuration levels and correlations that support radiation pressure as a key factor in circumnuclear material distribution.
Contribution
First comprehensive X-ray spectral analysis of a local, optically-selected obscured Seyfert sample using multiple models and telescopes.
Findings
79-90% of sources are heavily obscured with N_H > 10^23 cm^-2
37-53% are Compton-thick with N_H > 10^24 cm^-2
Reprocessed emission fraction correlates with N_H and anti-correlates with luminosity
Abstract
We study the X-ray spectra of a sample of 19 obscured, optically-selected Seyfert galaxies (Sy 1.8, 1.9 and 2) in the local universe (~Mpc), drawn from the CfA Seyfert sample. Our analysis is driven by the high sensitivity of NuSTAR in the hard X-rays, coupled with soft X-ray spectra using XMM-Newton, Chandra, Suzaku, and Swift/XRT. We also analyze the optical spectra of these sources in order to obtain accurate mass estimates and Eddington fractions. We employ four different models to analyze the X-ray spectra of these sources, which all result in consistent results. We find that 79-90 % of the sources are heavily obscured with line-of-sight column density . We also find a Compton-thick () fraction of %. These results are consistent with previous estimates based on multi-wavelength analyses. We find…
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