From Thin to Thick: The Impact of X-ray Irradiation on Accretion Disks in AGN

Details From Thin to Thick: The Impact of X-ray Irradiation on Accretion Disks in AGN From Thin to Thick: The Impact of X-ray Irradiation on Accretion Disks in AGN

2006-10-09

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0610263v2

Astrophys.J.662:94-101,2007

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

8 pages, 4 figures, accepted to ApJ. changes made from suggestion by the referee

Scientific paper

10.1086/517960

We argue that the X-ray and UV flux illuminating the parsec-scale accretion disk around luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN) is super-Eddington with respect to the local far-infrared dust opacity. The far infrared opacity may be larger than in the interstellar medium of the Milky Way due to a combination of supersolar metallicity and the growth of dust grains in the dense accretion disk. Because of the irradiating flux, the outer accretion disk puffs up with a vertical thickness $h\sim R$. This provides a mechanism for generating a geometrically thick obscuring region from an intrinsically thin disk. We find obscuring columns $\sim 10^{22} - 10^{23} {\rm cm}^{-2}$, in reasonable agreement with observations.

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