Refereed journal article or data article (A1)
Polarization constraints on the X-ray corona in Seyfert Galaxies: MCG-05-23-16
List of Authors: Marinucci A, Muleri F, Dovciak M, Bianchi S, Marin F, Matt G, Ursini F, Middei R, Marshall HL, Baldini L, Barnouin T, Rodriguez NC, De Rosa A, Di Gesu L, Harper D, Ingram A, Karas V, Krawczynski H, Madejski G, Panagiotou C, Petrucci PO, Podgorny J, Puccetti S, Tombesi F, Veledina A, Zhang W, Agudo I, Antonelli LA, Bachetti M, Baumgartner WH, Bellazzini R, Bongiorno SD, Bonino R, Brez A, Bucciantini N, Capitanio F, Castellano S, Cavazzuti E, Ciprini S, Costa E, Del Monte E, Di Lalla N, Di Marco A, Donnarumma I, Doroshenko V, Ehlert SR, Enoto T, Evangelista Y, Fabiani S, Ferrazzoli R, Garcia JA, Gunji S, Hayashida K, Heyl J, Iwakiri W, Jorstad SG, Kitaguchi T, Kolodziejczak JJ, La Monaca F, Latronico L, Liodakis I, Maldera S, Manfreda A, Marscher AP, Mitsuishi I, Mizuno T, Ng CY, O'Dell SL, Omodei N, Oppedisano C, Papitto A, Pavlov GG, Peirson AL, Perri M, Pesce-Rollins M, Pilia M, Possenti A, Poutanen J, Ramsey BD, Rankin J, Ratheesh A, Romani RW, Sgrs C, Slane P, Soffitta P, Spandre G, Tamagawa T, Tavecchio F, Taverna R, Tawara Y, Tennant AF, Thomas NE, Trois A, Tsygankov SS, Turolla R, Vink J, Weisskopf MC, Wu K, Xie F, Zane S
Publisher: OXFORD UNIV PRESS
Publication year: 2022
Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Journal name in source: MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Journal acronym: MON NOT R ASTRON SOC
Volume number: 516
Issue number: 4
Start page: 5907
End page: 5913
Number of pages: 7
ISSN: 0035-8711
eISSN: 1365-2966
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac2634
URL: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/516/4/5907/6731657
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.09338
We report on the first observation of a radio-quiet active galactic nucleus (AGN) in polarized X-rays: the Seyfert 1.9 galaxy MCG-05-23-16. This source was pointed at with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) starting on 2022 May 14 for a net observing time of 486 ks, simultaneously with XMM-Newton (58 ks) and NuSTAR (83 ks). A polarization degree pi smaller than 4.7 per cent (at the 99 per cent confidence level) is derived in the 2-8 keV energy range, where emission is dominated by the primary component ascribed to the hot corona. The broad-band spectrum, inferred from a simultaneous fit to the IXPE, NuSTAR, and XMM-Newton data, is well reproduced by a power law with photon index Gamma = 1.85 +/- 0.01 and a high-energy cutoff E-C = 120 +/- 15 keV. A comparison with Monte Carlo simulations shows that a lamp-post and a conical geometry of the corona are consistent with the observed upper limit, a slab geometry is allowed only if the inclination angle of the system is less than 50 degrees.
