A Study of the Soft X-ray Emission Lines in NGC 4151 II. The Internal Plasma Properties

TL;DR

This paper introduces a Python tool suite for analyzing soft X-ray spectra in AGN, enabling measurement of plasma properties like temperature and density over 15 years, with potential for educational outreach.

Contribution

The paper presents a standardized Python toolkit for fitting AGN X-ray spectra, focusing on plasma diagnostics and long-term variability analysis.

Findings

Plasma temperature and density in NGC 4151 were tracked over 15 years.

The toolkit effectively measures velocities in AGN spectra.

Further development needed for outreach applications.

Abstract

We showcase a tool suite that enables the fitting of soft X-ray spectra in active galactic nuclei (AGN), without the need for specialist software, allowing access to AGN physics for school students. While these standardised Python tools were useful for measuring velocities (Note I), they offered significantly fewer capabilities for radiative recombination continua (RRC), and R and G ratios, utilised to obtain the internal plasma properties within the out owing wind seen in NGC 4151. Although further work is required for these tools to be used in outreach projects, we present findings of the plasma temperature and density in NGC 4151 spanning a 15 year period.