Swift-XRT and NuSTAR Monitoring of Obscuration Variability in Mrk 477

TL;DR

This study analyzes 15 X-ray observations of Mrk 477 to monitor its obscuration variability, revealing frequent changes in column density on short timescales and suggesting a possible link to broad line region clouds.

Contribution

First comprehensive monitoring of Mrk 477's obscuration variability using multiple X-ray observatories and self-consistent torus models, highlighting rapid changes and long-term trends.

Findings

Mrk 477 has a large covering factor torus with low average column density.

Line of sight column density varies between 1.5-7×10^23 cm^-2.

Obscuration variability occurs on timescales as short as 2 weeks.

Abstract

We present the analysis of 15 X-ray observations of Mrk 477, a nearby Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus, with the objective to monitor its obscuring column density variability. The full dataset consists of five archival observations, split into two XMM-Newton, two NuSTAR and one Chandra observation, plus two dedicated monitoring campaigns. The monitoring campaigns were performed with Swift-XRT and NuSTAR, containing five observations each. We performed a simultaneous analysis using self-consistent torus models, deriving geometric properties of the torus as well as the obscuration along the line of sight. Mrk 477 is best modeled with a torus with large covering factor yet low column density (on average). Its line of sight column density oscillates between $1.5-7\times10^{23}$~cm$^{-2}$. Mrk~477 presents frequent obscuring column density variability, on timescales as short as $\sim2$~weeks. The probability of drawing a pair of obscuration-variable observations for Mrk~477 when having 2, 3, and 4 observations is 40\%, 78\% and 95\%, respectively. Adding the results of this work to those of another 26 sources, we find a trend of increasing obscuration variability with time (from $\sim20$\% at $\Delta t<10$~days, to $\sim60-70$\% at timescales larger than 5 years). We discuss whether this is compatible with the majority of obscuration variability coming from broad line region clouds.