High-energy monitoring of NGC 4593 II. Broad-band spectral analysis: testing the two-corona model

Abstract

It is widely believed that the primary X-ray emission of AGN is due to the Comptonisation of optical-UV photons from a hot electron corona, while the origin of the 'soft-excess' is still uncertain and matter of debate. A second Comptonisation component, called warm corona, was therefore proposed to account for the soft-excess, and found in agreement with the optical-UV to X-ray emission of a sample of Seyfert galaxies. In this context, we exploit the broadband XMM-Newton and NuSTAR simultaneous observations of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 4593 to further test the so called "two corona model". The NGC 4593 spectra are well reproduced by the model, from the optical/UV to the hard X-rays. Moreover, the data reveal a significant correlation between the hot and the warm corona parameters during our monitoring campaign.