Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 1–14 (2011)
Printed 14 November 2018
(MN LATEX style file v2.2)
arXiv:1110.5326v1 [astro-ph.CO] 24 Oct 2011
Hot Graphite Dust and the Infrared Spectral Energy Distribution of
Active Galactic Nuclei
Rivay
Mor 1⋆ and Hagai Netzer 1
1
School of Physics and Astronomy and the Wise Observatory, The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel
Accepted 2011 October 21. Received 2011 September 26
ABSTRACT
We present a detailed investigation of the near-to-far infrared (IR) spectral energy distribution
(SED) of a large sample of Spitzer-observed active galactic nuclei (AGN). We fitted the spectra of 51 narrow line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s) and 64 broad line Seyfert 1 galaxies (BLS1s)
using a three component model: a clumpy torus, a dusty narrow line region (NLR) and hot
pure-graphite dust located in the outer part of the broad line region (BLR). The fitting is performed on star formation (SF) subtracted SEDs using SF templates that take into account the
entire range of possible host galaxy properties. We find that the mid-IR intrinsic emission of
NLS1s and BLS1s are very similar, regardless of the AGN luminosity, with long wavelength
downturn at around 20–25 µ m. We present a detailed model of the hot dust component that
takes into account the distribution of dust temperature within the clouds and their emission
line spectrum. The hot dust continuum provides a very good fit to the observed near-IR continuum spectrum. Most line emission in this component is dramatically suppressed, except
Mg II λ 2798 and He I lines that are still contributing significantly to the total BLR spectrum.
We calculate the covering factors of all the AGN components and show that the covering factor of the hot-dust clouds is about 0.15-0.35, similar to the covering factor of the torus, and is
anti-correlated with the source luminosity and the normalized accretion rate.
Key words: infrared: galaxies – galaxies: active – galaxies: nuclei – quasars: general
1 INTRODUCTION
The unification scheme of active galactic nuclei (AGN) requires an
anisotropic obscuring structure that surrounds the central accreting black hole (e.g., Krolik & Begelman 1988; Antonucci 1993).
In this picture, the bulk of the radiation from the central engine
is absorbed by the obscuring structure and re-emitted mainly at
mid-infrared (MIR) wavelengths. The infrared (IR) spectral energy distribution (SED) of AGN also shows emission by star forming (SF) regions in the host galaxy. Recent studies have shown
that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) features can serve as
good indicators for this SF activity (e.g., Schweitzer et al. 2006;
LaMassa et al. 2010). Measuring and subtracting the SF contribution to the IR SED enables to focus on the AGN-produced SED.
Netzer et al. (2007) used the PAH features to subtract the SF contribution from the average SED of the QUEST sample of PG quasars
(QSOs). This was done for two sub groups of low and high far-IR
(FIR) luminosity. The two subtracted SEDs were found to be remarkably similar suggesting that most AGN have similar intrinsic
SEDs. Deo et al. (2009) reached a similar conclusion while investigating samples of both type-I and type-II Seyfert galaxies. Both
studies found that the intrinsic AGN SEDs exhibit two main bumps
⋆
E-mail: rivay@wise.tau.ac.il
around ∼ 10 and 20-µ m. These are associated with broad silicate emission features as well as emission from cooler dust clouds.
More recently Mullaney et al. (2011) found that the second bump
may peak at somewhat longer wavelengths (∼ 30-µ m) indicating
the presence of even colder dust.
A main component of the obscuring circumnuclear structure is believed to be a dusty torus. The MIR SED of such a
torus depends on its dimensions and geometry, the density distribution and the dust grain properties. Several attempts have
been made to model such tori assuming smooth density distributions (e.g., Pier & Krolik 1992, 1993; Granato & Danese 1994;
Efstathiou & Rowan-Robinson 1995; van Bemmel & Dullemond
2003; Schartmann et al. 2005) and clumpy density distributions
(e.g., Nenkova et al. 2008a; Hönig et al. 2010). Other AGN components can contribute to the observed MIR spectrum. Some of this
emission may originate farther from the central radiation source,
at distances exceeding the dimensions of the torus. Dusty gas in
the narrow-line region (NLR) may be the source of such radiation
(Schweitzer et al. 2008; Mor et al. 2009, hereafter M09). Thus, a
> 20- µ m due to components not related
significant contribution at ∼
to the torus, must be considered.
Dust reverberation measurements of several nearby AGN,
based on the V and K band emission, lead to the conclusion that
the near IR (NIR) emission in these sources is dominated by ther-
2
Mor & Netzer
mal radiation from hot dust very close to the centre (Minezaki et al.
2004; Suganuma et al. 2006). There have been several studies that
fitted the NIR to MIR SEDs of AGN using a black-body spectrum
to represent emission from such hot dust (e.g., Edelson & Malkan
1986; Barvainis 1987; Kishimoto et al. 2007; Riffel et al. 2009;
M09; Deo et al. 2011). More recently, Landt et al. (2011) found
similar results by fitting the optical to NIR SED of 23 AGN. The
modelled temperature of this component, in all these studies, is
> 1200 K), regardless of the AGN luminosity, and is consishigh ( ∼
tent with pure-graphite dust emission (M09). Mor & Trakhtenbrot
(2011) used the (observed) optical to MIR SEDs of ∼ 15000 type-I
AGN to conclude that a hot pure-graphite dust component is observed in the vast majority of such sources. Several studies found
that the NIR luminosity strongly correlates with the luminosity of
the AGN (e.g., Gallagher et al. 2007; Mor & Trakhtenbrot 2011).
Gallagher et al. (2007) concluded that this tight relation suggests a
constant covering factor of dusty clouds regardless of AGN luminosity. Mor & Trakhtenbrot (2011) found that the covering factor
of the hot dust component decreases with increasing AGN bolometric luminosity.
Following M09, we aim to investigate a larger sample of type-I
AGN with a broad range of luminosities, black hole masses (MBH ),
and normalized accretion rates (L/LEdd ). We fit the observed MIR
spectra of 115 type-I AGN using a 3-component model made of
a clumpy torus, dusty NLR clouds and very hot dust clouds. Our
main goal is to explore the physical properties of these components,
focusing mainly on the hot dust. The high quality spectra made
available by the IRS spectrometer on-board the Spitzer Space Observatory (Houck et al. 2004) allows us to explore these ideas. In
§2 we describe the observational data. In §3 we detail our model
and the fitting procedure and in §4 we present the results of this
procedure and discuss their implications.
2 SAMPLE SELECTION OBSERVATIONS AND DATA
REDUCTION
Our database consists of local type-I AGN collected from several
samples, covering a wide range in luminosity and divided into two
groups of NLS1s and BLS1s, according to their FWHM[Hβ ], with
a division line at 2000 km s−1 . 20 NLS1s in our sample are taken
from the ROSAT sample of nearby AGN (Thomas et al. 1998), and
are a part of the Spitzer PID 20241 (PI D. Lutz) recently described
by Sani et al. (2010, hereafter S10). S10 supplemented these objects by a large number of additional Spitzer/IRS archival observations of NLS1s and BLS1s. These additional objects were selected from the 12th edition of the Catalog of Quasars and Active Nuclei compiled by Véron-Cetty & Véron (2006). We also
added to the sample all AGN in the QUEST Spitzer spectroscopy
project (PID 3187, PI S. Veilleux), which is described in detail in
Schweitzer et al. (2006) , Netzer et al. (2007) and M09. Most of the
QUEST objects are Palomar-Green (PG) QSOs (Schmidt & Green
1983) and are taken from Guyon et al. (2006). In total, our sample
consists of 115 sources (51 NLS1s, 64 BLS1s) spanning a luminosity range of L5100 ≈ 1042.2−45.9 erg s−1 where L5100 stands for λ Lλ
at rest wavelength 5100 Å.
The Spitzer observations and the data reduction procedure of the S10 and QUEST samples are detailed in S10 and
Schweitzer et al. (2006), respectively and are summarized here for
completion. IRS spectra for all objects were taken in either low or
high resolution modes and cover the wavelength range of 5–35 µ m
in the observed frame. The standard slit widths of 3′′ .6 to 11′′ .1 in-
clude flux from the host galaxies and the vicinity of the AGN. We
started the data reduction from the basic calibrated data (BCD) provided by the Spitzer pipeline. Specially developed IDL-based tools
are then used for removing outlying values for individual pixels and
for sky subtraction. The SMART tool (Higdon et al. 2004) is used
for extraction of the final spectra.
We supplemented the Spitzer spectra with NIR data obtained from the 2MASS extended and point source catalogues
(Skrutskie et al. 2006). Approximately 2/3 of the sources have been
detected by the 2MASS survey. We re-measured the 2MASS images using an IRS-slit-like aperture in order to avoid biases regarding the large aperture used in the 2MASS catalogues. This gives a
better calibration to the NIR measurements with respect to the spectrum of the source, and is more relevant for the extended sources in
our sample ( 50% of the sample). The main source of uncertainty
related to the NIR data is due to the fact that many of these images
were taken more than 20 years before the Spitzer observations. For
the longer wavelengths of the SED we use IRAS 60-µ m photometry (Neugebauer et al. 1984). Aperture corrections, similar to those
done for the 2MASS data, are not possible for the IRAS data due to
the low spatial resolution of the IRAS instrument (∼ 2′ ). This contributes to the uncertainty in the FIR flux of the extended objects in
our sample and will be discussed in §3.1.
In order to compute Lbol for all sources we adopt
the Marconi et al. (2004) “intrinsic”, luminosity dependant
SED, which provides a polynomial prescription for estimating
λ Lλ (4400-Å) at every Lbol . We use this prescription for L5100
by adopting a fν ∝ ν −0.5 power-law approximation. For the S10
sample, values of L5100 were obtained from various works (see
S10 and references therein) For most objects in the QUEST sample the values of L5100 are obtained from the observations of
Boroson & Green (1992). For PG 1244+026, PG 1001+054, and
PG 0157+001 we used spectra from the seventh data release of
the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS/DR7, Abazajian et al. 2009)
that were measured in the way described in Netzer & Trakhtenbrot
(2007). We have estimated MBH and L/LEdd for all sources using
the procedure described in Netzer & Trakhtenbrot (2007). In this
procedure (the “virial” mass determination, see Eq. 1 in Netzer &
Trakhtenbrot 2007), L5100 and FWHM(Hβ ) are combined to obtain
MBH . L/LEdd is obtained by using the adopted bolometric correction factor (BC).
There are two uncertainties associated with the use of Lbol .
The first is source variability, which is an important effect since the
optical and MIR observations were separated by many years. We
estimate this uncertainty to be a factor of ∼ 1.5. The second uncertainty involves the approximation used for the BC. We estimate
this uncertainty to be ∼30%. Both uncertainties affect the derived
model parameters such as the covering factors and the distances to
the NLR and hot dust clouds. Because of this, we do not attach great
importance to specific values obtained from our best acceptable
models. On the other hand, the sample is large enough to enable a
significant analysis of its mean properties since the larger of these
effects, due to source variability, is likely to be random. The uncertainty due to the estimate of BC is smaller but more problematic
since the expression we use can under-estimate or over-estimate
Lbol for all sources. This can introduce systematic differences, e.g.
a smaller covering factors for all sources.
3
Graphite Dust in AGN
14
10
46
12
10
UGC2982
f /f
60 25
Arp220
M82
8
IRAS 22491−1808
λLλ [erg s−1]
10
10
45
Arp220
I22491
NGC6090
UGC2982
M82
44
6
10
4
43
NGC6090
10
2
10
10
11
10
LIR [L⊙ ]
10
12
Figure 1. Ratio between FIR and MIR fluxes vs. IR luminosity. Gray points
represent IR bright galaxies from the The IRAS Revised Bright Galaxy
Sample Sanders et al. (2003). Calculated ratios from theoretical SF templates of Chary & Elbaz (2001) are presented as triangles and the observed
ratio in the 5 galaxies used as SF templates in this paper are shown as black
squares. The horizontal dashed lines show flux ratios of 3 and 13.
3 SPECTRAL DECOMPOSITION
One of the main goals of the present work is to investigate the
2–60 µ m SED of the sources in our sample, following the general scheme of M09. Our models include different physical components: a very hot pure-graphite dust, a dusty torus containing
graphite and silicate grains, a dusty NLR, and a SF host galaxy.
We start by separating the AGN-related components from the host
galaxy component. The subtraction of the SF contribution is a major challenge and a major source of uncertainty mainly at longer
wavelengths where the SF is dominant. The adopted procedure is
described below.
3.1 Star Forming Regions in the Host Galaxy
In order to properly account for the SF emission we need SF
templates that represent a large range of properties of SF galaxies. We used Spitzer/IRS spectra of 5 different SF galaxies: M82,
UGC 2982, NGC 6090, IRAS 22491-1808, and Arp 220. These
galaxies span a wide range of IR luminosity (LIR ≈ 1010.5−12.2 L⊙ )
and PAH luminosity (e.g., LPAH 7.7µ m ≈ 108.4−9.8 L⊙ ). Most important, we need to take into account the large range and large scatter in
the ratio between the FIR and MIR luminosities, known to exist in
SF galaxies (e.g., Sanders et al. 2003). As can be seen in Figure 1,
the scatter in f60 / f25 (the flux ratio) is between ∼3-13. This scatter
introduces an uncertainty in the determination of the intrinsic AGN
SED for a specific object (see further discussion in §4.1). For each
of our 5 SF galaxies we choose 8 values within this range (3-13)
and simulate a 60 µ m data point accordingly. We use the simulated 60 µ m data points to construct, from each MIR spectrum, 8
SF templates covering the NIR to FIR wavelength range. In total,
42
5
10
20
30
Rest Wavelength [µm]
60
Figure 2. Spitzer/IRS spectra of 5 SF galaxies that were used to construct
the SF templates. Each spectrum is supplemented with 8 simulated data
points at 60 µ m to sample the observed range in f60 / f25 shown in Fig. 1
our set of SF templates consists of 40 (5×8) templates covering a
large range of IR luminosity, FIR/MIR ratio, and PAH intensities.
Finally, the observed spectra of the templates are smoothed to avoid
any systematic features in the subtracted AGN spectra. The 40 SF
templates are shown in Figure 2.
We subtract each template from the observed NIR-NIR SEDs
using the intensity of the PAH emission features. The PAH emission is assumed to be solely due to SF in the host galaxy. The 7.7µ m PAH feature was detected in 50 sources in our sample. This
feature is strong and can be used as a reliable indicator for SF activity. Recent studies have shown that the ratio between the 11.3 and
7.7-µ m features in AGN may differ significantly from those observed in SF galaxies (Diamond-Stanic & Rieke 2010; Sales et al.
2010). To further test this issue we compared the luminosity ratio
of the 11.3 and 7.7-µ m features in our sample to our SF templates.
All our sources exhibit a much larger ratio than observed in the
templates, suggesting that either the 11.3 µ m feature is stronger in
AGN compared with SF galaxies at similar IR luminosities, or that
the AGN activity may suppress the shorter wavelength feature. The
measurement of both features is problematic. The 7.7-µ m feature is
often blended with the adjacent 8.6-µ m feature, and the 11.3-µ m
feature is strongly affected by the adjacent 10-µ m broad silicate
feature.
For each SF template we choose a normalization factor and
require that after the subtraction the flux at the wavelengths corresponding to the PAHs will not exceed the noise level. Application
of this criterion to the 11.3-µ m feature resulted in deep “absorption” features in the subtracted spectra at the wavelengths of all the
other PAH features (6.2, 7.7, and 8.6-µ m). Applying the criterion
to the 7.7-µ m feature resulted in residual flux only in the 11.3-µ m
wavelength range. We therefore choose to apply this criterion to the
7.7-µ m feature. This can contribute to the uncertainty in the determination of the SF contribution and the shape of the intrinsic AGN
4
Mor & Netzer
SED. We further discuss this issue in §4.1 For objects with no PAH
detection the subtraction is limited according to the level of noise
in the relevant wavelength ranges.
Given the large scatter in f60 / f25 , subtraction of different templates using the same criterion at short wavelengths may imply very
different contribution of the SF component to the FIR emission.
Given our assumption that the FIR emission in AGN is dominated
by SF in the host galaxy, we prefer subtractions in which the SF
contribution to the 60-µ m flux is above 80%. The combination of
all templates that satisfy both criteria at short and long wavelengths
define the acceptable range of SEDs. As explained in §2, there is
another source of uncertainty related to the low spatial resolution of
the IRAS observations. This uncertainty propagates into the determination of the SF component and as a consequence affects the determination of the intrinsic AGN SED (see §4.1 and §4.4 for more
discussion).
We calculate the SF contribution to the MIR luminosity by integrating over the scaled SF template between 2–35 µ m. The median contribution is 20% with a wide distribution between 0 and
75%. 15 sources in our sample exhibit a SF dominated MIR SED,
i.e. 10 µ m silicate feature in absorption and very strong PAH emission features (see also Deo et al. 2009). Indeed, for these sources
the SF contribution is much higher compared with the rest of the
sample. Moreover, SF dominated SEDs are more common among
NLS1s (12 sources) compared with BLS1s (3 sources). This is consistent with the findings of S10 that NLS1s often exhibit much
stronger SF activity compared with BLS1s for the same AGN luminosity. SF dominated MIR SED may also be the result of weak
AGN contribution to this region in the SED due to a small covering
factor. We return to this issue in §4.5.
Subtraction of SF templates with large MIR contribution (&
35%) is problematic. In these cases the SF contribution, in certain
narrower wavelengths ranges (e.g. 6.5–7.5 µ m), can exceed the observed flux, thus the remaining AGN SED becomes meaningless.
The fact that the SF template can exceed the observed flux at certain wavelengths while the integrated flux over the entire 2–35 µ m
range can be as low as 35%, is related to the different SED shapes
and PAH intensities in SF galaxies. We omit these sources from
the following analysis of the intrinsic AGN SED. The subtraction
of the SF template has profound effect at wavelengths longer than
∼ 5-µ m, and very little effect on the hot dust component.
fraction of the incoming radiation to be absorbed and re-emitted at
NIR wavelengths. This component is different from the ”standard“
clumpy torus clouds since the temperature of its dust is too high for
silicate grains to survive (see §4.2). Thus, the clumpy torus model
must be amended to include a pure-graphite dust component in order to provide a full solution to the observed spectrum.
To overcome the difficulty associated with the incomplete
torus model we added an additional free parameter to the fitting
procedure which in practice is a free normalization parameter. This
parameter represents the fraction of the total radiation reaching the
clumpy torus i.e., the fraction that is not absorbed by the hot puregraphite dust component. The new procedure does not provide a
full solution since it does not include the different SED shapes
“seen” by the torus, but only accounts for the total energy. It provides an effective way to determine the contribution of the torus
component to the IR SED (the torus covering factor).
The main parameters and assumptions of the clumpy torus
model are detailed in Nenkova et al. (2008a) and M09. Unfortunately, the additional free normalization of the torus makes it
impossible to fully constrain the geometrical parameters of the
clumpy torus. However, the contribution of the torus to the MIR
emission can still be reliably determined. The covering factor of
the torus, CFTorus , can be deduced from the ratio between its total luminosity and the bolometric luminosity of the central source.
This definition of the covering factor is equivalent to f (i) in M09
(eq. 5 there).
3.3 Dusty NLR
The second component of the model represents a collection of
dusty NLR clouds. The motivation for this component is explained
in Schweitzer et al. (2008) and in M09 where it was shown that
such a component can contribute significantly to the MIR flux of
luminous AGN. The properties assumed here for these clouds are
similar to the ones used in M09. We assume constant column density clouds with NH = 1021.5 cm−2 . We further assume constant
hydrogen density of 105 cm−3 , solar composition, galactic dust-togas ratio, and ISM depletion. The important physical parameters for
this component are the cloud-central source distance (which determines the dust temperature), the incident SED and the dust column
density. For more information on this component see M09.
3.2 Clumpy Torus with Silicate-type Dust
The first AGN-related component is a dusty torus surrounding
the central energy source. We use the clumpy torus models of
Nenkova et al. (2008a) in a similar way to that described in M09.
The model accepts Lbol as an input to calculate the normalization
of the SED. Unfortunately, the normalizations that were calculated
before September 2010, and used in M09, were found to be off
by a factor of ∼2–3 (see erratum by Nenkova et al. 2010). By repeating exactly the M09 fitting procedure for the current sample,
and using the corrected normalization factors, we could not fit the
spectra with low inclination angle models, i.e. those representing
type-I AGN. Such corrected models emit more flux than actually
observed. This suggests that in these cases the torus is exposed to
too much incoming radiation.
A possible solution to the above problem is related to the hot
dust component found in M09. Such a component, located between
the central source and the inner edge of the torus, must affect the radiation transfer and the energy balance in the system. This component can have a relatively large covering factor causing a significant
3.4 Hot Pure-Graphite Dust
The third component represents a collection of dusty clouds of gas
located at the inner edge of the torus. The motivation for this component is explained in M09 where it was shown that such a component is necessary to explain the NIR emission of type-I QSOs.
Mor & Trakhtenbrot (2011) have shown that a hot dust component is present in & 80% of type-I AGN and is significantly luminous. The pure-graphite dust must be external to the broad-line
region (BLR), where dust cannot survive, and internal to the “standard” clumpy torus, where the distances are large enough to allow
silicate-type grains.
The physical scale of the hot-dust region is set by two different
conditions. The outer boundary is the sublimation radius appropriate for a “typical” dust composed of both (average size) silicate and
graphite grains. This is given by
1/2
Lbol
1500 K 2.6
Rd,Si ≃ 1.3 ×
pc.
(1)
Tsub
1046 erg s−1
Graphite Dust in AGN
The inner boundary is the sublimation radius of pure-graphite
grains with a sublimation temperature of 1800 K,
1/2
1800 K 2.8
Lbol
pc.
(2)
Rd,C ≃ 0.5
Tsub
1046 erg s−1
Hot dust spectrum
R=1.3 pc
7
10
Normalized νLν
This is the innermost radius where an averaged-size graphite dust
grain can survive. Here we suggest that the pure-graphite dust is
located in BLR clouds that are between the silicate and graphite
sublimation radii. We note that these radii depend on the assumed
grain properties, mostly their size, and are not to be taken at face
value but rather as typical scales of the system.
We investigate the conditions in this region by calculating photoionization models that extend all the way from the innermost
BLR to the dusty torus. The numerical code used for the calculation
of the IR continuum emitted by the clouds, as well as their emission
line spectrum, is the 2009 version of the code ION which is described in detail in various earlier publications (e.g., Netzer 2006,
and references therein). The code includes all the relevant atomic
and dust-related processes and was compared with CLOUDY (by
G. Ferland) to ensure similar results under a large range of conditions including dusty and dust-free gas.
We adopted the “cloud model” of the BLR which we consider to be the one most relevant to the situations considered here.
This is one of three possible generic BLR models addressed in the
literature. It includes a system of clouds that preserve their mass
as they move in or out. The properties of the clouds depend on
the radial coordinate r through an external parameter, s, that describes the external confining pressure (presumably magnetic in
origin). The model was originally suggested by Rees et al. (1989)
and was extended to more realistic cases in Netzer (1990) and in
Kaspi & Netzer (1999). The main model ingredients are the gas
density in the clouds (N(r) ∝ r−s ), the cloud size (R(r) ∝ rs/3 ), the
column density (Ncol (r) ∝ r2s/3 ), and the geometrical cross section
of the clouds (A(r) ∝ R(r)2 ). An additional parameter, p, specifies
the volume density of the clouds, (nc (r) ∝ r−p ) and thus the radialdependent covering fraction of the system, C(r). Using the above
definition we get, dC(r) ∝ r2s/3−p dr.
The actual calculations assume constant density clouds, the
parameters s and p, and the inner boundary conditions on N and
Ncol . These can be adjusted to give the best agreement with the observations of a specific AGN. Kaspi & Netzer (1999) investigated
a large range of dust-free BLR properties in attempt to fit the timevariable emission line spectrum of NGC 5548. They found that the
values that are consistent with the observations are 1 ≤ s ≤ 1.5 and
1 ≤ p ≤ 2.
Two other types of BLR models were not considered in this
work. The first is the “local optimally-emitting clouds” model
(LOC; e.g., Baldwin et al. 1995; Korista et al. 1997), which assumes a large range of conditions (density, column density etc.)
at every location in the BLR. The second is the wind model (e.g.,
Murray et al. 1995) which is based on the assumption that BLR
clouds condense out of a fast outflow, which originates very close
to the central source, perhaps in the vicinity of the central accretion disk. The emission line characteristics of the wind model have
never been compared in detail with specific AGN observations. Our
preference of the cloud model is based in part on several recent observations that directly detect cloud-like objects in the general region of the BLR in low luminosity AGN (see e.g., Maiolino et al.
2010; Turner & Miller 2009, and references therein)
The parameters of the generic model which has been used in
this study are: s = 1, p = 1, N(r = Rd,C ) = 109.8 cm−3 and Ncol (r =
5
R=3.5 pc
6
10
5
10
1
10
wavelength [µm]
Figure 3. Normalized spectra, per unit covering factor, of the hot puregraphite dust component. The gas composition is 2 Z⊙ and the cloud properties are given in the text. All the spectra shown here are calculated for
the case of L5100 = 1046 erg s−1 . The smallest and largest cloud-source distances in the grid are marked next to the lines. The dotted line is the mean
spectrum of all dusty clouds weighted by their covering factor.
Rd,C ) = 1022.66 cm−2 , where Rd,C is the graphite sublimation radius (eq. 2). This combination gives U(r = Rd,C ) = 1.6 × 10−2
where U is the ionization parameter. The model further assumes gas
composition of 2 Z⊙ and ISM-type depletion. The incoming SED
is typical of high luminosity AGN and is made of a combination of
a central accretion disk and a high energy X-ray power-law with a
break at 50 keV. The results of the calculations depend mostly on
the value of Lbol and not on the exact SED shape.
While the local emission of the graphite dust depends only on
the grain properties, the dust temperature inside the cloud varies
by a large factor because of the local grain opacity. Thus a single
cloud spectrum looks like a combination of many modified blackbodies. The calculations provide a grid of dust-produced SEDs that
are used in the fitting of the hot dust component. Such a grid is
shown in figure 3. The calculations also provide the emission line
spectrum of the ensemble of dusty clouds (see §4.2.2).
3.5 Model Fitting and Fit Quality
The fitting procedure starts with the SF template subtracted SED
that is assumed to represent the intrinsic AGN continuum. Although the SF component is subtracted prior to the model fitting,
it introduces another degree of freedom to the procedure. To fit the
SEDs with a 3-component models we use χ 2 minimization in a
similar way to that described in M09. The only difference is that
the normalization of the torus component is now a free parameter.
The fitting algorithm computes χ 2 values for all possible combinations of torus, NLR and hot dust models. There are seven free
parameters in the torus model, the normalization parameter and six
others that describe its geometrical properties (§ 3). In the NLR
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λLλ [erg s ]
Mor & Netzer
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Data/Model
Data/Model
10
1.2
1
0.8
5
10
15
20
25
30
Rest Wavelength [µm]
1.2
1
0.8
5
10
15
20
25
30
Rest Wavelength [µm]
Figure 4. Best fit using the three-component model for two representative cases, the NLS1 Mrk 896 (left diagram) and the BLS1 Mrk 1146 (right diagram).
Top panels show the best fit model (magenta) and the observed (grey) and subtracted and binned (black) spectra. We also show individual components: torus
(green), NLR (red) and hot pure-graphite dust (blue). In the bottom panels of each diagram we show the quality of the fit in each wavelength bin, by calculating
the ratio between the model and the fitted data.
model there are two free parameters, the cloud distance and a normalization factor. The distance is changed in steps of 0.075 dex
between 1 and 850 pc for a source with Lbol = 1045 erg s−1 . For
the hot dust, there are also two free parameters similar to the NLR
component, the distance to the cloud and a normalization factor.
For example, for a source with L5100 = 1046 erg s−1 the range of
distances is changed in steps of 0.03 dex between 0.4 and 6 pc.
Fig. 4 shows the best fit models for two representative cases,
the NLS1 Mrk 896 and the BLS1 Mrk 1146. The top panel of each
diagram shows the best fit model (magenta) and the observed (grey)
and subtracted and binned (black) spectra. We also show individual
components: torus (green), NLR (red) and hot pure-graphite dust
(blue). In the bottom panels of each diagram we show the quality
of the fit in each wavelength bin, by calculating the ratio between
the model and the fitted data.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The sample described here was collected from the Spitzer archive
with no specific selection criteria. Thus, some sources lack certain
data and/or sufficient quality to be proper analysed. 78 sources in
the sample (38 NLS1s and 40 BLS1s) have NIR photometry. In
the following analysis related to the hot dust component (§4.2 and
§4.5) we only consider these sources. The IRS spectra of 15 sources
in our sample have very low signal to noise ratio. All silicate and
PAH features in these sources are undetected and it is impossible
to constrain the continuum shape. These sources are not included
the analysis of the intrinsic AGN SED (§4.1), the torus SED (§4.3),
and the NLR properties (§4.4).
4.1 Star Formation in the Host Galaxy and the Intrinsic
AGN SED
Our method to construct the SF templates is driven by the intrinsic
scatter in the ratio between the FIR and MIR fluxes found in SF
galaxies. The subtraction procedure uses two criteria to determine
the best SF template and its normalization. The first is the condition that after the subtraction, any remaining flux at the wavelength
range of the PAH features would be consistent with the noise level.
Since our SF library consists of templates that span a large range of
LIR , only small adjustment of the normalization is needed, and the
normalization values are usually close to one. The second criterion
is that the SF template would dominate the FIR part (60-µ m) of the
SED.
The SF luminosity (LSF ) of each source is calculated from
the subtraction process using the integrated IR luminosity of the
template and its normalization. Figure 5 shows LSF versus Lbol
for our sample with different symbols for NLS1s and BLS1s. We
also show the LSF = Lbol line and the relationship LSF = 1043 ×
0.7
Lbol /1043
erg s−1 which is adopted from the correlation shown
in Netzer (2009).
Altogether, 85 sources (37 NLS1s and 48 BLS1s) have high
S/N IRS spectra and AGN dominated MIR SEDs. For each of these,
the range of different templates that meet the PAH criterion is relatively narrow, and the uncertainty on the shape of the AGN SED
is small. The SF-template subtracted spectra are normalized at 14µ m and then used for constructing median intrinsic AGN SEDs
for two groups divided by FWHM(Hβ ), i.e. NLS1s and BLS1s.
The choice of the normalization point may have some effect on the
shape of the median SED. We choose to normalize the spectra at
14-µ m since this wavelength is less effected by the broad silicate
emission features and the large scatter at longer wavelengths. The
Graphite Dust in AGN
10
emitters. Again, the shapes of the AGN SEDs were remarkably
similar. Deo et al. (2009) employed a similar subtraction method
to a large sample of type 1 and 2 Seyfert galaxies. These authors find that the AGN continuum emission drops rapidly beyond
∼ 20-µ m for all AGN types, regardless of SF activity. Recently,
Mullaney et al. (2011) employed a somewhat different method to
determine the intrinsic AGN SED of a medium-size sample of typeI and type-II AGN. These authors fit simultaneously the IR SEDs
using a SF template and a broken power law that represents the
AGN emission. They find that the warm dust peak is located at
somewhat longer wavelengths, between ∼ 15 and 45-µ m, before
dropping rapidly towards FIR wavelengths. This result is not confirmed by our analysis probably due to the different way of accounting for the SF contribution, and the different nature of the
MIR ingredients they consider (a power-law). We suspect that it
may also be affected by the presence of type-II AGN in their sample and the difficulty to properly account for the host contribution
in these sources.
46
45
L
SF
[erg s−1]
10
10
10
44
43
10
7
43
44
10
45
L
10
bol
46
−1
[erg s ]
10
10
47
Figure 5. Star formation luminosity in AGN host galaxies vs. AGN
bolometric luminosity for the two groups of NLS1s (circles) and BLS1s
(squares). The SF luminosity is calculated using the IR luminosity of
the chosen template and its normalization. The solid line represents
LSF = Lbol and the dashed line represent the relation LSF = 1043 ×
0.7
Lbol /1043
erg s−1 adopted from the correlation shown in Netzer (2009).
Table 1. Median Intrinsic AGN SED
Rest Wavelength
(µ m)
Intrinsic AGN SED
λ Lλ (arb.units)
0.51
1.2
1.7
2.2
2.7
3.2
0.8401
0.9956
1.0182
1.0364
1.0479
1.0555
Table 1 is published in its entirety in the electronic edition
right panel of Figure 6 shows the median AGN SED for the two
populations of narrow- and broad-line AGN in our sample. The left
panel shows the median AGN SED for all 85 sources. Examining
Figure 6 it is evident that the general shape of the SEDs, regardless of line widths, is very similar. All SEDs exhibit three distinct
peaks at short (. 5-µ m) and medium (∼ 10 and ∼ 20-µ m) wavelengths. The 10 and 20-µ m peaks are likely dominated by silicatedust emission. The median intrinsic AGN SED for all 85 sources
is also listed in Table 1. We also examined the median AGN SEDs
for two luminosity groups defined by the median luminosity of the
sample at 6-µ m (1044.2 erg s−1 ). We do not find any significant
difference between the two SEDs.
Our result is consistent with the shape found by Netzer et al.
(2007) for the QUEST sample. The QUEST sample represents the
high end of the AGN luminosity range of our current sample, and
mostly consists of broad line sources. Netzer et al. (2007) also divided the QUEST sample into two groups of strong and weak FIR
4.2 Hot Dust Properties
A major goal of this work is to explain the NIR emission in type-I
AGN and to identify the physical properties of the component responsible for this emission. The hot dust models used here provide
both the continuum emission, which peaks at NIR wavelengths, and
the UV-NIR lines emitted by this component.
4.2.1 Continuum emission and distances
The most important parameter of the hot dust component determined by the fitting procedure is its luminosity (LHD ). Since the hot
dust is optically thick at all UV-optical wavelengths, LHD is simply
a measure of the covering factor of this component, CFHD . Figure 7
shows a strong correlation between LHD and Lbol . NLS1s (blue circles) exhibit a similar trend to that of BLS1s (red circles) although
the scatter in this group is larger. The solid line in Fig. 7 represents a simple least squares fit to the data of the current work with
a slope of 0.9. Fig. 7 also shows the results of Mor & Trakhtenbrot
(2011) (grey dots). These authors fitted the (observed) optical to
MIR SEDs of ∼ 15000 high luminosity QSOs and measured the luminosity of the hot dust component. The relation between LHD and
Lbol , over a large luminosity range, indicates that CFHD in type-I
AGN spans a relatively limited range (∼0.1–0.2). The NLS1s that
lie much below the relation of Fig. 7 may represent sources with
exceptionally small CFHD (see §4.5)
The second parameter that is determined by the fitting procedure is the distance from the centre to the hot dust component (RHD ). Figure 8 shows this distance against Lbol . The silicate and pure-graphite dust sublimation radii defined by equations 1 and 2, respectively, are also shown. We also show the relation between the emissivity-weighted BLR radius for the Hβ
line, RBLR (Hβ ) and Lbol . This radius is based on an up-todate version of the Kaspi et al. (2005) relation taking into account the modifications of Bentz et al. (2009): RBLR(Hβ ) = 0.35 ×
0.62
L5100 /1046 erg s−1
pc. Fig. 8 demonstrates that the clouds are
clearly situated outside the dust-free BLR and inside the edge of the
“standard” silicate-dust torus.
Several other model parameters affect the derived distance, for
example the column density of the graphite dust (which is related to
the gas metallicity) that affect the mean dust temperature in an optically thick clouds. However, changing the values of these param-
8
Mor & Netzer
1.6
1.6
1.4
1.4
Normalized λL
Normalized λLλ
1.8
λ
1.8
1.2
1
1.2
1
0.8
0.8
0.6
0.6
5
10
15
20
25
30
Wavelength [µm]
5
10
15
20
25
30
Wavelength [µm]
Figure 6. Intrinsic AGN SEDs. Right: median intrinsic AGN SEDs for two sub-groups of NLS1s (blue) and BLS1s (red). Dashed lines represent the 25th and
75th percentiles of each sub-group. Left: median intrinsic AGN SED for all 85 sources (see data in Table 1). As in the right panel, dashed lines represent the
25th and 75th percentiles. All SEDs have very similar shape and exhibit three peaks at short (. 5-µ m) and medium (∼ 10 and ∼ 20-µ m) wavelengths. The
SEDs are normalized at 14 µ m and their shape may be somewhat effected by the chosen normalization point.
eters do not significantly alter the results found here. For example,
assuming solar metallicity, instead of 2 Z⊙ , enlarges the derived
distances, for all sources, by about a factor of 1.25. These distances
are still consistent with the assumed location of the dusty clouds.
10
46
10
10
44
L
HD
−1
[erg s ]
4.2.2 The emission line spectrum of dusty BLR clouds
45
10
43
44
10
45
10
Lbol [erg s−1]
10
46
Figure 7. Luminosity of the hot dust component (LHD ) vs. AGN bolometric
luminosity (Lbol ). Results from the current work are shown as circles and
squares (NLS1s and BLS1s, respectively). Results for a much larger sample
of high luminosity QSOs from Mor & Trakhtenbrot (2011) are shown in
grey. The black line represents a simple least squares fit to the data of the
current work. The 37 sources without NIR data are not included in this plot
So far we have only discussed the hot dust continuum emission.
However, these “dusty-graphite-BLR” clouds also produce broad
emission lines that will be observed in the UV-NIR part of the
spectrum. This aspect has never been investigated and is likely
to result in more observational constraints on the hot dust model.
Fig. 9 shows normalized line fluxes, per unit covering factor, for
the 2 Z⊙ metallicity BLR model considered here. The line intensities are shown as a function of distance for the specific case of
L5100 = 1046 erg s−1 . Other cases can be obtained from the diagram
by scaling r with L1/2
Given the known radial changes in the differential covering
fraction, dC(r), we can integrate over the line emissivity to obtain the cumulative line luminosities produced by the dusty-BLR
clouds. This is shown in Fig. 10. The diagram illustrates the large
increase in line flux up to the graphite sublimation radius and
the much slower increase beyond this boundary. For the model in
question, the covering fraction of the dusty-graphite-BLR clouds
is almost exactly the same as the cumulative covering fraction of
the dust-free clouds. If the dusty-graphite-BLR clouds were dust
free, the total emitted flux of lines such as Lyα and Hβ , would
roughly double over this region. Since much of the ionizing radiation is absorbed by the graphite grains, the increase in intensity
is significantly reduced. For example, in the dusty-graphite-BLR
model considered here, the increase in Lyα is 11%, in Hβ 7%, in
Graphite Dust in AGN
10
9
0
9
10
−1
R
HD
[pc]
10
Cumulative line intensities
Lα
10
−2
CIV 1549
8
10
MgII 2798
HeI 10830
7
10
Hβ
FeII (opt)
6
10
10
0
−3
44
10
L
bol
10
45
10
[erg s−1]
9
λLλ (5100)=10 erg/sec
46
2xsolar metallicity
Lα
8
Normalized intensity
10
CIII] 1909
HeI 10830
7
10
MgII 2800
Hβ
CIV 1549
6
10
FeII (opt)
5
10
1
2
3
4
r [pc]
Figure 8. Distance to the hot pure-graphite dust components (RHD ) vs.
AGN bolometric luminosity (Lbol ) for two sub-groups of NLS1s (circles)
and BLS1s (squares). Dashed and solid black lines represent the sublimation radii of silicate and pure-graphite dust (eqn. 1 and 2), respectively. Dotdashed line represent the RBLR (Hβ )-Lbol relation (see text).
10
1
46
Figure 10. Cumulative emission line intensities as a function of distance
from the central source for the model presented in Fig. 9. The dashed vertical lines represent the graphite and silicate dust sublimation radii for the
model. For most lines, the increase in total emitted flux is very small although not completely zero (see text for details).
C IV λ 1549 6%, in Mg II λ 2798 38%, in He I λ 10830 69%, and in
Fe II only 3%. Thus, the only significant contributions to the total
line intensities are due to Mg II and He I lines.
The BLR model presented here is not entirely consistent with
the SED fitting procedure of §3 since all clouds in the pure-graphite
zone are contributing to the emission lines yet the SED fitting takes
into account only one such cloud. As illustrated in Fig. 3, this is not
a severe limitation since the covering-factor-weighted mean spectrum has an SED that is very similar to that produced by a single
cloud.
The BLR models considered here do not represent the entire
range of possible properties. In particular, the effect of the internal
dust on the line emission depends on the ionization parameter (U)
since at lower U, the fraction of the ionizing continuum absorbed
by the dust is reduced. This can result in a larger increase of the line
intensity in this zone. The exact values of U, the gas density, and
column density of the cloud model are determined by the parameter s (§3.4). A more detailed consideration of these possibilities is
deferred to a future publication.
10
r [pc]
4.3 Torus Properties
Figure 9. Normalized line emissivity per unit covering fraction for strong
broad emission lines for the case of twice solar metallicity. The graphite
sublimation radius in this case is at 1.32 pc and the silicate sublimation
radius at 3.47 pc. These distances are clearly visible due to the large drop
in the emissivity of all lines resulting from the absorption of the ionizing
radiation by the grains and the selective depletion of most metals.
As explained in §3.2, the presence of hot dust clouds at the inner
edge of the torus will affect the torus emission spectrum. The hot
dust clouds will absorb a large fraction of the incident UV radiation
and re-emit it at NIR wavelengths and at different directions than
the original AGN radiation. This will change the SED and total
luminosity incident on the torus.
As a first attempt to solve this issue without resorting to a full
new torus model (which is not yet available), we subtracted the
hot-dust luminosity, LHD , from Lbol and used this value in order
Mor & Netzer
(i) The median torus width parameter is σ = 35.
(ii) The radial extent of the torus, Y, has a broad distribution
with a median value of 30. The range in Y implies torus outer sizes
that range between ∼1.7 to 85 pc.
(iii) The average number of clouds along an equatorial ray, N0 ,
has a broad distribution with a median of 4 clouds.
(iv) The parameter that specifies the radial power-law distribution of the clouds, q, has a median value of 1.7. This parameter is
related to the anisotropy of the torus radiation. As q decreases the
torus radiation becomes less isotropic.
(v) The median optical depth of a cloud is τV =38. This parameter has a broad distribution with τV ≥ 20. Since the requirement for
large MIR optical depth is τV ∼ 10, it is not surprising that the torus
models are not very sensitive to the exact value of τV beyond this
value.
(vi) The torus inclination angle shows a broad distribution for
all i ≤ 60◦ with a median of 50 ◦ . This again is consistent with the
assumption that the direct line-of-sight to the centre of type-I AGN
is almost completely free of obscuring material.
We stress again that we do not attach great significance to a specific
value of a specific torus parameter but rather make sure that all
parameters lie within a reasonable range for type-I AGN.
[pc]
10
NLR
to calculate the torus models (see §3.2). For this reduced amount
of incident luminosity, we used the exact same scheme as M09 in
which the torus normalization is not a free parameter but rather set
by the (now reduced) AGN luminosity. We found that most sources
still could not be fitted using low inclination angle, those representing type-I AGN tori. To fit the spectra using such low inclination
models one would need to artificially reduce Lbol by a factor that
is larger than the one implied by the hot dust emission. This unsuccessful attempt may imply that the viewing angle of the hot dust
(which is not considered here) can play an important role or that
the geometry of the hot dust clouds is different from that of the
torus. For example, if the hot dust component has similar geometry
to that of the torus, its emission would also be highly anisotropic.
Moreover, if the two components have different inclination angles,
the amount of radiation that the torus would receive from the hot
dust component would be different than the amount inferred by the
observed NIR flux. We conclude that the only way to fully examine
this possibility is to include a pure-graphite dust component into
the radiative transfer calculation of the clumpy torus.
In further attempt to solve this issue, we set the normalization
of the torus component to be a free parameter of the fitting procedure (§3.2). This way, models with low energy output, small physical size, or high inclination angles w.r.t. the line of sight, fit well
the observed spectra. This adds a considerable uncertainty to the
derived values of the geometrical parameters of the fit. However,
the average sample properties are less likely to be affected.
The following conclusions refer to the distribution of the different torus parameters for all sources with good IRS S/N ratio (49
NLS1s and 51 BLS1s). We found that some parameters have a narrow distribution around a mean value and in some cases only a single acceptable value. Other parameters exhibit a broader, more uniform distribution. The parameter distributions of all sources were
combined by giving each value within the acceptable range in a
certain source its relative weight in the distribution. The results are
(see M09 for more explanation of the parameters):
10
3
2
R
10
10
1
44
10
L
bol
10
45
[erg s−1]
46
10
Figure 11. NLR cloud distances vs. AGN bolometric luminosity. NLS1s
are marked by circles while BLS1 are marked by squares. The slope from
M09 (0.47) is shown by the grey line for comparison. The 15 sources with
very low IRS S/N are not included in this plot.
4.4 NLR Properties
The important parameters of the NLR component are the distance
from the centre, which determines the dust temperature, and the total dust luminosity which determines the fraction of MIR flux emitted by such clouds. The properties of this component are similar
to those described in M09. Figure 11 shows NLR cloud distances
against the bolometric luminosity of the objects. Using simple least
squares regression we find the following scaling relationship,
0.67±0.05
Lbol
RNLR = 460 ×
pc.
(3)
1046 erg s−1
The grey line in Fig. 11 represents the scaling relation (slope 0.47)
found for the QUEST sample by M09. Although we find a slightly
steeper slope, both results are consistent within the observed scatter. The distances found here are similar to the values found by
M09, however the scatter in the current sample is larger.
As explained, the main difference from M09 regarding the
NLR component is the more detailed treatment of the SF contribution. For example, the emission from the dusty NLR component
peaks at MIR wavelengths (above ∼20-µ m) where the SF contribution to the observed spectrum is substantial. M09 used a single M82
template to subtract the observed spectrum. For sources with strong
SF activity (i.e., those with high Lbol or NLS1s that exhibit strong
SF, see S10) this template does not properly account for the observed FIR emission. Other SF templates have larger contribution
towards shorter wavelengths (∼30-µ m). Consequently, the NLR
component would have less weight in the AGN MIR spectrum and
different spectral shape. This can result in larger NLR distances and
smaller luminosity. We consider this as an additional uncertainty on
the determination of the NLR distance and its relative contribution.
Graphite Dust in AGN
0.9
0.7
0.5
Hot Dust
0.3
0.1
Fraction
0.9
0.7
0.5
Torus
0.3
0.1
0.9
0.7
0.5
NLR
0.3
0.1
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Covering Factor
Figure 12. Cumulative distribution functions of the covering factors of the
three AGN dusty components. For all components, the covering factors tend
to be smaller in NLS1s (blue) than in BLS1(red). The distribution of CFHD
and the torus covering factor are very similar indicating that about half of
the obscuration is due to hot pure-graphite dust clouds which are typically
not included in “standard” torus models. Dashed lines in the upper panel
represent CFHD obtained by fitting the 1–5 µ m range using the hot dust
component only (without a torus component - see text)
4.5 Covering Factors of the Dusty Components
A major assumption of this work is that the entire MIR spectrum,
after starburst subtraction, is reprocessed AGN radiation. This can
be used to deduce the covering factor of the central source by the
three components (see also M09 and references therein). The covering factors are defined by the ratio between the total luminosity of
each component and Lbol . Figure 12 shows the cumulative distribution functions of the covering factors of the different components.
The blue line represents the NLS1s in the sample and the red line
represents the BLS1s. As seen from the diagram, NLS1s tend to
have smaller covering factors compared with BLS1s. The median
value of CFHD for the NLS1s is 0.23, for the BLS1s 0.27, and for
the entire sample is 0.25. The median value of the torus covering
factor is 0.24 for the NLS1s and 0.33 for the BLS1s. The covering
factor of the NLR component has a median value of 0.03 for the
NLS1s and 0.07 for the BLS1s.
S10 found that NLS1s tend to have stronger SF activity compared with BLS1s at a given AGN luminosity. Since we fit the SF
subtracted SED this may effect the derived torus and NLR covering
factors. However, this cannot explain the difference in the covering
factors of the hot dust component since the SF contribution to the
1–5 µ m wavelength range is very small. Host contribution to the
optical range (i.e. to L5100 ) would result in an overestimation of
the AGN bolometric luminosity and consequently lower the estimated covering factor (see discussion on the uncertainty of Lbol
in §2). Such host contribution to the optical spectrum however, is
more significant in lower luminosity AGN regardless of their line
widths, and cannot explain the observed discrepancy.
11
We further checked the influence of the torus component on
the fitting of the NIR wavelength range (1–5 µ m) where the hot
dust component dominates the spectrum. We fitted this limited
wavelength range using a hot-dust component only, without including a torus component. The dashed lines in the upper panel
of Fig. 12 represent the CFHD obtained in this manner. The median
value of this CFHD for all sources is 0.29 and is slightly higher than
that found by the fitting of the entire SED using all three components (0.25). Thus using NIR photometry only, CFHD (and LHD )
are overestimated, on average, by 16%.
In order to explore the relation with AGN properties we focus on CFHD and compare it against Lbol , MBH , and L/LEdd .
Fig. 13 shows CFHD against these properties for the current sample of NLS1s (blue circles) and BLS1s (red circles). The results of
Mor & Trakhtenbrot (2011, grey dots) are shown for comparison.
The black dashed lines in Fig. 13 represent the 99th percentiles
boundaries of the CFHD distribution of the Mor & Trakhtenbrot
(2011) sample. These percentiles were calculated by assuming that
the CFHD distribution, in a certain luminosity bin, should be symmetrical around the peak value and by mirroring the high-CFHD
side of the distribution. This is done in each 0.2 dex luminosity bin
separately. Mor & Trakhtenbrot (2011) suggest that all the points
which lie below the lower dashed lines can be regarded as hot-dustpoor AGN. The fraction of such sources in their sample is ∼20%
and does not depend on source luminosity.
The left panel of Fig. 13 presents a clear anti-correlation, in
the sense of a decreasing CFHD with increasing Lbol . This trend is
further confirmed by both Pearson’s and Spearman’s rank correlation tests (p value ≪ 0.01 for both tests). Several earlier studies
suggested a similar trend (e.g., Wang et al. 2005; Maiolino et al.
2007; Treister et al. 2008), however these were based on the total
MIR emission which translates to the covering factor of the entire
dusty structure, and not just the hot dust. Gallagher et al. (2007)
suggest that this CFHD -Lbol anti-correlation may be the manifestation of dust extinction in the host galaxy 1 Mor & Trakhtenbrot
(2011), however, showed that such an anti-correlation is still very
significant even for the bluest sources in their sample. These “blue”
sources have optical slopes greater than −0.4, and are less likely to
be affected by extinction. The physical mechanism responsible for
the decrease of covering factor with Lbol is still undetermined. One
possibility is a “receding torus” scenario (Lawrence 1991), where
higher luminosity implies larger dust sublimation distance, and
hence an obscuring structure that is located farther away from the
centre. In this scenario, the geometry of the hot-dust clouds must
be toroidal and have a constant height. Another possibility is that
the CFHD -Lbol anti-correlation is analogous to the anti-correlation
found between the equivalent width of different BLR lines (Hβ
and C IV) and AGN luminosity (e.g., Baldwin 1977; Netzer et al.
2004; Baskin & Laor 2005). The CFHD -Lbol anti-correlation cannot explain the lower CFHD of the NLS1s in the current sample,
since both BLS1s and NLS1s sub-groups span a similar luminosity
range.
The NLS1s in our sample have lower MBH than the BLS1s. As
can be seen in the middle panel of Fig. 13, most of the sources with
log (MBH /M⊙ ) < 7.3 are NLS1s and ∼20% of them have CFHD
lower than 0.1. No significant correlation was found between CFHD
and MBH . If the NLS1s that have very low CFHD are truly hot dust
poor AGN it may suggest that these sources are more common in
1
Gallagher et al. (2007) present a somewhat different covering factor since
they integrate over a larger range of IR wavelengths (∼1–100 µ m).
12
Mor & Netzer
0
CFHD
10
−1
10
−2
10
44
10
45
10
−1
Lbol [erg s ]
10
46
10
6
7
10
8
10
MBH [Msun]
10
9
−2
10
−1
10
L/LEdd
10
0
Figure 13. Covering factor of the hot pure-graphite dust component against Lbol (left), MBH (middle), and L/LEdd (left panel). In all panels, NLS1s are
represented by the circles and BLS1s by squares. Results of Mor & Trakhtenbrot (2011) (grey dots) are shown for comparison. Dashed black lines represent
the peak of the CFHD distribution and the 99th percentiles boundaries - see text
low MBH sources. Mor & Trakhtenbrot (2011) did not find such a
dependence of the fraction of hot dust poor AGN on MBH . However, the reason that this dependence was not found can be related
to the relatively narrow MBH range that the Mor & Trakhtenbrot
(2011) sample span.
L/LEdd is known to be higher in NLS1s. The right panel of
Fig. 13 suggests an anti-correlation between CFHD and L/LEdd ,
over two orders of magnitude in L/LEdd . The NLS1s that lie below the CFHD -Lbol and CFHD -MBH relations are also the sources
with the highest L/LEdd . Mor & Trakhtenbrot (2011) did not find
significant correlation between CFHD and L/LEdd . However, this is
probably due to the relatively narrow range of L/LEdd in their sample. Similar to the relation with the AGN luminosity, Netzer et al.
(2004) and Baskin & Laor (2005) found that the equivalent width
of the broad Hβ and C IV lines also anti-correlates with L/LEdd .
5 CONCLUSIONS
We conducted a detailed investigation of the NIR-FIR SED of a
large sample of Spitzer-observed AGN. We fitted the spectra of 51
NLS1s and 64 BLS1s using a three component model: a clumpy
torus, a dusty NLR, and a hot pure graphite-dust component which
is a continuation of the BLR. The fitting was performed on SF subtracted SEDs using SF templates that take into account the entire
range of possible host galaxy properties.
The main results of the investigation are:
• The intrinsic MIR AGN SED is very similar in NLS1s and
BLS1s regardless of AGN luminosity. All SEDs exhibit three distinct peaks at short (. 5-µ m) and medium (∼ 10 and ∼ 20-µ m)
wavelengths. The first peak is likely dominated by emission from
pure-graphite dust located outside the dust-free BLR and within
the “standard” silicate-dust torus. The other two peaks are likely
dominated by silicate-dust, corresponding to the known 10 and 18µ m broad emission features. The long wavelength downturn of the
AGN SED is at about 20–25 µ m.
• Our detailed modelling of the hot-dust component allows us to
explore the emission line spectrum of such clouds. Most line emission is dramatically suppressed in these dusty clouds. However, the
Mg II λ 2798 and He I lines are still contributing significantly to the
total BLR spectrum.
• We calculated the covering factors of all AGN-related component and found that the covering factor of the hot-dust component
is about 0.25. The covering factor of the torus component is comparable with a median value of 0.28. The NLR has a much smaller
covering factor of about 0.07. The NLS1s in our sample tend to
have smaller covering factors than BLS1s.
• The covering factor of the hot-dust component, CFHD , anticorrelates with both Lbol and L/LEdd . The CFHD -Lbol anticorrelation may be related to the idea of a “receding torus” where
higher luminosity implies larger dust sublimation distance, and
hence an obscuring structure that is located farther away from the
centre. This however requires that the hot dust component would
have a toroidal structure with constant height. The origin of the
CFHD -L/LEdd relation is unknown and is not a consequence of the
CFHD -Lbol relation since the NLS1 and BLS1 sub-samples have
similar distribution of Lbol . Both the CFHD -Lbol and the CFHD L/LEdd relations may be analogues of the anti-correlations found
between the equivalent widths of broad Hβ and C IV lines and AGN
luminosity and L/LEdd .
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful to Benny Trakhtenbrot and Ido Finkelman for
useful discussions. We thank the DFG for support via GermanIsraeli Cooperation grant STE1869/1-1.GE625/15-1. Funding for
this work has also been provided by the Israel Science Foundation
grant 364/07. This publication makes use of data products from the
Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis
Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science
Foundation.
Graphite Dust in AGN
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