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The Accretion and Obscured Growth of Supermassive Black Holes pp 45–80Cite as

IC3639—A New Bona Fide Compton-Thick AGN Unveiled by NuSTAR

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Abstract

This chapter aims to uncover the nature of the obscurer in a candidate Compton-thick AGN using detailed spectral modelling and multiwavelength diagnostics. Such detailed studies of individual highly obscured AGN are the most effective way to understand the spectral components contributing to the missing fraction of the peak Cosmic X-ray Background flux. Specifically, I carry out the first robust broad-band X-ray spectral analysis of the nearby Seyfert 2 and candidate Compton-thick AGN IC 3639 (also called Tololo 1238-364). The study of this source was motivated by its exceptionally strong Fe K\(\alpha \) line detected with previous X-ray observations, as well as a surplus of observed mid-infrared flux as compared to the observed X-ray luminosity of the source. The source is hosted by a barred spiral galaxy (Hubble classification SBbc) with redshift z = 0.011 corresponding luminosity distance D \(=\) 53.6 Mpc.

I find that if you just talk,

your mouth comes up with stuff.

– Karl Pilkington

Material presented in this chapter has been published in Boorman et al. [12], DOI: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/833/2/245

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://leda.univ-lyon1.fr.

  2. 2.

    Available from https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/W3Browse/w3browse.pl.

  3. 3.

    https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/xanadu/xspec/XspecManual.pdf.

  4. 4.

    Available from https://isas.jaxa.jp/e/enterp/missions/suzaku/index.shtml.

  5. 5.

    For more information, see https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/xanadu/ximage/ximage.html.

  6. 6.

    For further details, see http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/suzaku/analysis/abc/node8.html.

  7. 7.

    For more information on the Suzaku background analysis, see http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/suzaku/analysis/abc/node10.html.

  8. 8.

    http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/.

  9. 9.

    http://mytorus.com/mytorus-examples.html.

  10. 10.

    Available at: http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/applications/Gator/index.html.

  11. 11.

    Available at http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/cgi-bin/Gator/nph-dd.

  12. 12.

    https://www.the-athena-x-ray-observatory.eu.

  13. 13.

    Located here: http://x-ifu-resources.irap.omp.eu/PUBLIC/BACKGROUND/5arcsec/.

  14. 14.

    I used the v170709a tables for this fit, but all borus02 model tables are available in Xspec-compatible form at: http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~mislavb/download/.

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  1. Czech Academy of Sciences, Astronomical Institute, Prague, Czech Republic

    Peter Boorman

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Boorman, P. (2021). IC3639—A New Bona Fide Compton-Thick AGN Unveiled by NuSTAR. In: The Accretion and Obscured Growth of Supermassive Black Holes. Springer Theses. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60361-8_2

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