Reconciling X-ray and 21cm HI absorption gas column densities toward obscured AGN

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new method to estimate total gas column densities in obscured AGN using dust reddening and HI absorption, addressing discrepancies with X-ray measurements.

Contribution

It introduces an empirical relation between HI absorption and dust reddening from the Milky Way to infer total gas columns without relying on spin temperature assumptions.

Findings

N(H) derived from dust reddening exceeds N(HI) by a factor of 4.

The empirical relation matches well with observations of Hydra-A.

Galactic conditions serve as a benchmark for AGN gas estimates.

Abstract

Hydrogen column densities inferred from X-ray absorption are typically 5 - 30 times larger than the neutral atomic hydrogen column densities derived from 21cm HI absorption toward radio-loud active galactic nuclei. Some part of the difference is ascribed to uncertainty in the spin temperature \Tsp\ = 100 K that is often used to convert 21cm HI HI absorption to N(HI). Here we propose another way to infer the gas column from HI absorption. In our Galaxy there is a nearly linear correlation between the inteferometrically-measured integrated 21cm HI absorption \WHI\ and reddening, \WHI\ $\propto$ \EBV$^{1.10}$ for \WHI\ $\ga 0.7$ \kms\ or \EBV\ $\ga 0.04$ mag. Scaling \EBV\ then provides the total gas column density N(H) from the same dust column that is responsible for optical obscuration and X-ray absorption, without calculating N(HI). Values of N(H) so derived typically exceed N(HI) by a factor 4 because the ubiquitous Galactic 21cm HI HI absorption samples only a portion of the interstellar gas. If the well-studied case of Hydra-A is a guide, even very large disparities in X-ray and 21cm HI gas column densities can be explained by resolving the core radiocontinuum and inferring N(H) from 21cm HI absorption. Milky Way conditions are often invoked in discussion of obscured AGN, so the empirical relationship seen in the Milky Way should be a relevant benchmark.