Three active galactic nuclei close to the effective Eddington limit for dusty gas

The effective Eddington limit for dusty gas surrounding active galactic nucleus (AGN) is lower than the canonical Eddington limit for hydrogen gas. Previous results from the Swift/Burst Alert Telescope 9-month catalogue suggested that in the overwhelming majority of local AGN, the dusty absorbing gas is below this effective Eddington limit, implying that radiation pressure is insufficient to blow away the absorbing clouds. We present an analysis of three objects from that sample which were found to be close to the effective Eddington limit (NGC 454, 2MASX J03565655-4041453 and XSS J05054-2348), using newly obtained XMM-Newton data. We use the X-ray data to better constrain the absorbing column density, and supplement them with XMM Optical Monitor data, infrared Spitzer and Herschel data were available to construct a broad-band spectral energy distribution to estimate refined bolometric luminosities and Eddington ratios for these three objects. The new XMM-Newton observations show all three objects moving away from the region expected for short-lived absorption in the N_H-λ_Edd plane into the `long-lived absorption' region. We find our conclusions robust to different methods for estimating the bolometric luminosity and Eddington ratio. Interestingly, 2MASX J03565655-4041453 and XSS J05054-2348 now exhibit complex X-ray spectra, at variance with previous analyses of their Swift/X-Ray Telescope data. We find evidence for absorption variability in NGC 454 and 2MASX J03565655-4041453, perhaps implying that although the radiation pressure from the central engine is insufficient to cause clearly detectable outflows, it may cause absorption variations over longer time-scales. However, more robust black hole mass estimates would improve the accuracy of the Eddington ratio estimates for these objects.