Live Poster Session: Zoom Link
Thursday, July 30th 1:15-2:30pm EDT
Abstract: X-rays are produced by accreting supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies; such objects are known as Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Through interactions with the accretion disk and surrounding torus of dense material, features are imprinted on the X-ray spectra of AGNs that provide insight into their physical properties. Using the broad 3-79 keV sensitivity of NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), along with HEASoft spectral analysis software, we have fitted a physically-motivated model to the high-quality X-ray spectra of 9 heavily obscured AGNs. Due to the physical nature of the model, we are able to account for the effects of obscuring material, yielding an estimate of the AGN’s intrinsic luminosity. Fitting each object with both an unconstrained version of the model and one in which parameters are fixed at typical values, we compare the luminosity estimates each provides; this demonstrates the appropriateness of the model as well as how intrinsic luminosity depends on model parameters. Using the relationships between luminosity and physical parameters for objects with high-quality spectra, we have established a robust method for estimating intrinsic luminosity for large numbers of obscured AGNs with lower-quality data.
Watstein_CISSummer2020Live Poster Session: Zoom Link
Thursday, July 30th 1:15-2:30pm EDT