The lively accretion disk in NGC 2992. II. The 2019/2021 X-ray monitoring campaigns
Date Issued
2022
Author(s)
Middei, R.
•
Marinucci, A.
•
•
Bianchi, S.
•
De Marco, B.
•
•
Matt, G.
•
•
•
Reeves, J. N.
•
Vagnetti, F.
Abstract
We report on the short and long term X-ray properties of the bright nearby
Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 2992, which was extensively observed with Swift,
XMM-Newton and NuSTAR. Swift targeted the source more than 100 times between
2019 and 2021 in the context of two monitoring campaigns. Both time-averaged
and time-resolved analyses are performed, and we find that the short-to-long
term spectral properties of NGC 2992 are dominated by a highly variable nuclear
continuum. The source varied in the 2-10 keV energy band from 0.6 to 12
$\times$ 10$^{-11}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ during the two year long Swift
monitoring. The fastest 2-10 keV flux change (by a factor of $\sim60\%$)
occurred on a timescale of a few hours. The overall emission spectrum of the
source is consistent with a power law-like continuum ($\Gamma=1.69\pm0.01$)
absorbed by a constant line-of-sight column density N$_{H}=(7.8\pm0.1)\times$
10$^{21}$ $\rm cm^{-2}$. The reflected emission is likely due to matter with an
average column density N$_{\rm H}=(9.6\pm2.7)\times$ 10$^{22}$ $\rm cm^{-2}$,
thus NGC 2992 appears to have a globally Compton-thin circumnuclear medium.
This scenario is fully supported by an independent analysis of the fractional
variability and by XMM-Newton multi-year spectra.
Volume
514
Issue
2
Start page
2974
Issn Identifier
0035-8711
Rights
open.access
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