Evidence of a Warm Absorber That Varies with Quasi-periodic Oscillation Phase in the Active Galactic Nucleus RE J1034+396

A recent observation of the nearby (z = 0.042) narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy RE J1034+396 on 2007 May 31 showed strong quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in the 0.3-10 keV X-ray flux. We present phase-resolved spectroscopy of this observation, using data obtained by the EPIC PN detector on board XMM-Newton. The "low" phase spectrum, associated with the troughs in the light curve, shows (at >4σ confidence level) an absorption edge at 0.86 ± 0.05 keV with an absorption depth of 0.3 ± 0.1. Ionized oxygen edges are hallmarks of X-ray warm absorbers in Seyfert active galactic nuclei; the observed edge is consistent with H-like O VIII and implies a column density of N _{O VIII} ~ 3 × 10¹⁸ cm^-2. The edge is not seen in the "high" phase spectrum associated with the crests in the light curve, suggesting the presence of a warm absorber in the immediate vicinity of the supermassive black hole that periodically obscures the continuum emission. If the QPO arises due to Keplerian orbital motion around the central black hole, the periodic appearance of the O VIII edge would imply a radius of ∼ 9.4(M/[4× 10^6 M_⊙])^{-2/3}(P/[1 hr])^{2/3} r_g for the size of the warm absorber.