Chandra High-resolution Spectroscopy of the Circumnuclear Matter in the Broad-line Radio Galaxy 3C 445

We present evidence for X-ray line emitting and absorbing gas in the nucleus of the broad-line radio galaxy 3C 445. A 200 ks Chandra Low Energy Transmission Grating observation of 3C 445 reveals the presence of several highly ionized emission lines in the soft X-ray spectrum, primarily from the He- and H-like ions of O, Ne, Mg, and Si. Radiative recombination emission is detected from O VII and O VIII, indicating that the emitting gas is photoionized. The He-like emission appears to be resolved into forbidden and intercombination line components, which implies a high density of >10¹⁰ cm^-3, while the oxygen lines are velocity broadened with a mean width of ~2600 km s^-1 (FWHM). The density and widths of the ionized lines indicate an origin of the gas on sub-parsec scales in the broad-line region. The X-ray continuum of 3C 445 is heavily obscured either by a partial coverer or by a photoionized absorber of column density N _H = 2 × 10²³ cm^-2 and ionization parameter log ξ = 1.4 erg cm s^-1. However, the view of the X-ray line emission is unobscured, which requires the absorber to be located at radii well within any parsec-scale molecular torus. Instead we suggest that the X-ray absorber in 3C 445 may be associated with an outflowing but clumpy accretion disk wind, with an observed outflow velocity of ~10, 000 km s^-1.