Dependence of the broad Fe Kα line on the physical parameters of AGN

Z Liu, W Yuan, Y Lu, FJ Carrera… - Monthly Notices of the …, 2016 - academic.oup.com
Z Liu, W Yuan, Y Lu, FJ Carrera, S Falocco, XB Dong
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2016academic.oup.com
In this paper, the dependence of the broad Fe Kα line on the physical parameters of AGN,
such as the black hole mass M BH, accretion rate (equivalently represented by Eddington
ratio λEdd) and optical classification is investigated by applying the X-ray spectra stacking
method to a large sample of AGN which have well measured optical parameters. A broad-
line feature is detected (> 3σ) in the stacked spectra of the high λEdd sub-sample (log
λEdd>− 0.9). The profile of the broad line can be well fitted with relativistic broad-line model …
Abstract
In this paper, the dependence of the broad Fe Kα line on the physical parameters of AGN, such as the black hole mass MBH, accretion rate (equivalently represented by Eddington ratio λEdd) and optical classification is investigated by applying the X-ray spectra stacking method to a large sample of AGN which have well measured optical parameters. A broad-line feature is detected (>3σ) in the stacked spectra of the high λEdd sub-sample (log λEdd > −0.9). The profile of the broad line can be well fitted with relativistic broad-line model, with the line energy consistent with highly ionized Fe Kα line (i.e. Fe xxvi). A model consisting of multiple narrow lines cannot be ruled out, however. We found hints that the Fe K line becomes broader as the λEdd increases. No broad-line feature is shown in the sub-sample of broad-line Seyfert 1 (BLS1) galaxies and in the full sample, while a broad line might be present, though at low significance, in the sub-sample of narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) galaxies. We find no strong dependence of the broad line on black hole masses. Our results indicate that the detection/properties of the broad Fe Kα line may strongly depend on λEdd, which can be explained if the ionization state and/or truncation radius of the accretion disc changes with λEdd. The non-detection of the broad line in the BLS1 sub-sample can be explained if the average equivalent width of the relativistic Fe Kα line is weak or/and the fraction of sources with relativistic Fe Kα line is small in BLS1 galaxies.
Oxford University Press