NuSTAR catches the unveiling nucleus of NGC 1068
Abstract
We present a NuSTAR and XMM-Newton monitoring campaign in 2014/2015 of the Compton-thick Seyfert 2 galaxy, NGC 1068. We detect a clear high-energy excess above 15 keV during the observation performed on August 2014, which disappears in the following observation, in February 2015, reverting back to the spectrum observed by NuSTAR in 2012. We carry on a detailed broad band spectral analysis, using self-consistent models to reproduce all the emission components arising from the complex environment of this AGN. In this scenario, the observed high energy excess can be explained by a decrease of the column density of the obscuring material along the line of sight, which allows us for the first time to unveil the nuclear radiation of the archetypal AGN buried in NGC1068.
- Publication:
-
The Extremes of Black Hole Accretion
- Pub Date:
- July 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015ebha.confE..17B