AGN structure and Unified modelsGuido Risaliti

INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri & Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

M. Polletta;Urry & Padovani 1995

Unified models: History

Polarization

Masers

TODAY:

1) Studying ComplexityLuminosity, Spin, BH mass, Edd.

ratio;BLR: density, cloud number, size,

metallicityTorus: distance, composition

(dust/gas), covering factor

2) Are all the “ingredients” of the structure correct?

3) Any missing piece ?Outflows, multiple tori….

Ionization cones

TORUS: direct imaging

Greenhill et al. 2003Tristram et al. 2007Jaffe et al. 2004

Meisenheimer et al. 2008

TORUS: direct imaging

TORUS: dust reverberation mapping

Pott et al. 2010

(dusty) TORUS: clumpy structure

Nenkova et al. 2008a,b

Silicates absorption/emission

Clumpy torus: Variability of NH in Seyfert Galaxies

Risaliti, Elvis & Nicastro 2002

NH variable in 23/25 sources

Timescales from months to years

Clumpy absorberSub-parsec distance

Inner TORUS: BLR/dust free component

Maiolino et al. 2001a

Low dust/gas ratio

Maiolino et al. 2001b

Missing BLR absorption in quasars

Inner TORUS: BLR X-ray absorption

DNH > 1024 cm-2

DT~10 hoursDNH~1023 cm-2

DT~2 days

DNH~3*1023 cm-2

DT<15 days DNH~1023 cm-2

DT~20 hours

NGC 1365 NGC 4151

UGC 4203 NGC 7582

Bianchi et al. 2009Risaliti et al. 2010

Risaliti et al. 2009

Puccetti et al. 2007

Stratified BLR

Peterson et al. 2007

104 RS

Dusty torus + BLR: a possible structure

Complications: 1. At least two tori

Most local intermediate Seyferts are found in edge-on galaxies(and with NH~1022-1023 cm-2)Maiolino & Rieke 1995, Risaliti et al. 1999

Dust lanes observed

Complications: 1. At least two tori

1. Compact torus: BLR + hot dust scale (104-106 RG)

2. Dust lanes; 100pc – kpc absorbers

3. Compton-thick, pc-scale torus ? need for a C-thick reflector to explain reflection in some C-thin

AGN (NGC 5506, NGC 7582..) (e.g. discussion in Bianchi et al. 2009 on NGC 7582)

Complications: 2. missing BLR

Tran 2001

Bian & Gu 2009

Complications: 2. missing BLR

“naked” Seyferts: NGC 3147

Bianchi et al. 2009

Complications: 2. missing BLR

“naked” quasars: Q2131-427

Panessa et al. 2009

Complications: 3. how many BLR ?

Arav et al. 1998

From smoothness of observed lines:

at least 108 !

Cloud structure: comets?

Maiolino et al. 2010

104 RS

Complications: 4. stability

104 RS

STABILITY: Inflow / Outflow ?

Outflows: 1. the “common” and “weak” ones

UV: NGC 5548 (Crenshaw et al. 2009) X-rays: NGC 1365 (Risaliti et al. 2005)

Outflows: 2. the “strong” ones

Optical/UVBAL, z~2(Dunn et al. 2009)

X-rays,PDS 456(Reeves et al. 2009)

Outflows: phenomenological models

Outflows: phenomenological models

Outflows: physical models

Proga 2000

Large scale structure

NGC 5252: Tadhunter & Tsvetanov 1989

Large scale structure

Bianchi et al. 2010

Mrk 573: X-rays/[O III] Mrk 573: X-rays/Radio

Large scale structure

Bianchi et al. 2010

Mrk 573

Conclusions

- orientation-based unification useful, and basically correct

-(too) many free parameters within the standard unified picture-Many deviations & extra “ingredients”

- New observations reveal this complexity, but also allow us to understand more and more details of the structure of AGN

AGNs with nuclear H2O maser disksare NOT preferentially Compton thick

log NH (cm-2)

Zhang+ 06

Distribution of EW([OIII]) has no high-EW cut off, as expected with a torus aligned with the disk

Risaliti+2010 (poster)

Disk orientation: aligned with torus ?

Disk orientation: aligned with torus ?

Greenhill et al. 2009