Abstract
Abstract We showcase a tool suite that enables the fitting of soft X-ray spectra in active galactic nuclei (AGNs), without the need for specialist software, allowing access to AGN physics for school students. While these standardized Python tools were useful for measuring velocities, they offered significantly fewer capabilities for radiative recombination continua, and R and G ratios, utilized to obtain the internal plasma properties within the outflowing wind seen in NGC 4151. Although further work is required for these tools to be used in outreach projects, we present findings of the plasma temperature and density in NGC 4151 spanning a 15 yr period.
Highlights
The outflowing winds seen in many active galactic nuclei (AGN) are photoionised (PI) by the radiation from the central source (e.g. Grafton-Waters et al 2020)
While these standardised Python tools were useful for measuring velocities (Note I), they offered significantly fewer capabilities for radiative recombination continua (RRC), and R and G ratios, utilised to obtain the internal plasma properties within the outflowing wind seen in NGC 4151
A useful diagnostic tool to determine the internal properties of the plasma are the radiative recombination continua (RRC) features, produced when free electrons recombine to the ground state of an ion
Summary
The outflowing winds seen in many active galactic nuclei (AGN) are photoionised (PI) by the radiation from the central source (e.g. Grafton-Waters et al 2020). Porquet & Dubau 2000, hereafter PD00) Another essential tool for identifying plasma properties are the R and G ratios (PD00), defined as R = f /i and G = (f + i)/r, where r, i, f are the fluxes of the resonance, intercombination and forbidden lines of the He-like triplets, respectively (see Figure 1 in Grafton-Waters et al 2021c, hereafter Note I). In Note I, we showcased a tool suite that enabled the fitting of the XMM-Newton reflection grating spectrometer (RGS; den Herder et al 2001) spectra from NGC 4151 to identify previously unreported plasma regions This new toolkit did not require specialist software (e.g. SPEX; Kaastra et al 2017) which may sometimes inhibit access to science by e.g. school students.
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