Testing X-Ray Reprocessing and Mapping the Soft Excess of NGC 7469 with NICER

We present an X-ray/UV reverberation analysis of NGC 7469 across 210 days, using daily NICER observations with contemporaneous monitoring by Swift UVOT+XRT. We model the X-ray spectrum with a power-law continuum and a soft excess during each NICER epoch. These emission sources demonstrate correlated...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ethan R. Partington, Edward M. Cackett, Rick Edelson, Keith Horne, Jake A. Miller, Aaron J. Barth, Jonathan Gelbord, Juan V. Hernández Santisteban
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2025-01-01
Series:The Astrophysical Journal
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/add3ef
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Summary:We present an X-ray/UV reverberation analysis of NGC 7469 across 210 days, using daily NICER observations with contemporaneous monitoring by Swift UVOT+XRT. We model the X-ray spectrum with a power-law continuum and a soft excess during each NICER epoch. These emission sources demonstrate correlated flux variability with a lag consistent with zero days. We find that the power-law emission is consistent with a compact X-ray corona, and that the soft excess can be explained by reflected coronal emission from the inner accretion disk. We test the relationship between changes in the flux of the X-ray corona and the UVW2 continuum, finding strong correlation and a negative X-ray lag of less than 1 day. This is consistent with a scenario in which the X-ray corona drives the UVW2 light curve through thermal reprocessing.
ISSN:1538-4357