Discovery of Rapid Variability of the Iron K-Line Profile in the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 7314

Details Discovery of Rapid Variability of the Iron K-Line Profile in the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 7314 Discovery of Rapid Variability of the Iron K-Line Profile in the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 7314

Oct 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996apj...470l..27y&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal Letters v.470, p.L27

Physics

48

Black Hole Physics, Galaxies: Active, Galaxies: Individual Ngc Number: Ngc 7314, Line: Profiles, X-Rays: Galaxies

Scientific paper

We present evidence of rapid variability of the shape of the Fe K line in the narrow-line Seyfert galaxy NGC 7314. The time-averaged line profile is strongly peaked near 6.4 keV and extends to ~5 and ~7 keV on the red and blue sides, respectively. The X-ray continuum varies by a factor of 2 on a timescale of hundreds of seconds, and it appears that emission in the red wing of the Fe K line below ~6 keV responds to these variations on timescales of less than ~3 x 104 s. The response becomes slower and slower toward the line peak near ~6.4 keV. The line broadening is unlikely to be due to scattering in material that fully encloses both continuum- and line-emitting regions, as it would not then be possible for the continuum to vary faster than any part of the Fe K line. Doppler and gravitational broadening (corresponding to a FWHM of ~8 x 104 km s-1) are likely to dominate. We show that the line-emitting region cannot lie completely outside r = 4.1 x 1015 cm from the continuum source. This implies a strong upper limit on the putative black hole mass of 4.7 x 109 Msolar for a Schwarzschild metric and 2.3 x 1010 Msolar for a maximally rotating Kerr metric. If the Fe K line originates entirely in an accretion disk, the disk cannot be highly ionized and has an inclination greater than 33 deg. The equivalent width of the line is model dependent, most likely to be in the range ~300--460 eV, but could formally be as small as ~130 eV. An obvious interpretation of the less variable narrow core of the iron line is that it originates in distant, cold matter such as a molecular torus. In this case, low and high disk inclinations are preferred for ionized and neutral disks, respectively.

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