Swift Monitoring of NGC 4151: Evidence for a Second X-Ray/UV Reprocessing

• Main Authors: Edelson, R., Gelbord, J., Cackett, E., Connolly, S., Done, C., Fausnaugh, M., Gardner, E., Gehrels, N., Goad, M., Horne, K., McHardy, I., Peterson, B. M., Vaughan, S., Vestergaard, M., Breeveld, A., Barth, A. J., Bentz, M., Bottorff, M., Brandt, W. N., Crawford, S. M., Bonta, E. Dalla, Emmanoulopoulos, D., Evans, P., Jaimes, R. Figuera, Filippenko, A. V., Ferland, G., Grupe, D., Joner, M., Kennea, J., Korista, K. T., Krimm, H. A., Kriss, G., Leonard, D. C., Mathur, S., Netzer, H., Nousek, J., Page, K., Romero-Colmenero, E., Siegel, M., Starkey, D. A., Treu, T., Vogler, H. A., Winkler, H., Zheng, W.
• Other Authors: Univ Arizona, Steward Observ
• Language: en
• Published: IOP PUBLISHING LTD 2017
• Subjects: galaxies: active; galaxies: individual (NGC 4151); galaxies: nuclei; galaxies: Seyfert
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10150/624341; http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/handle/10150/624341

Swift monitoring of NGC 4151 with an similar to 6 hr sampling over a total of 69 days in early 2016 is used to construct light curves covering five bands in the X-rays (0.3-50 keV) and six in the ultraviolet (UV)/optical (1900-5500 angstrom). The three hardest X-ray bands (> 2.5 keV) are all strongly correlated with no measurable interband lag, while the two softer bands show lower variability and weaker correlations. The UV/optical bands are significantly correlated with the X-rays, lagging similar to 3-4 days behind the hard X-rays. The variability within the UV/optical bands is also strongly correlated, with the UV appearing to lead the optical by similar to 0.5-1 days. This combination of greater than or similar to 3 day lags between the X-rays and UV and less than or similar to 1 day lags within the UV/optical appears to rule out the "lamp-post" reprocessing model in which a hot, X-ray emitting corona directly illuminates the accretion disk, which then reprocesses the energy in the UV/optical. Instead, these results appear consistent with the Gardner & Done picture in which two separate reprocessings occur: first, emission from the corona illuminates an extreme-UV-emitting toroidal component that shields the disk from the corona; this then heats the extreme-UV component, which illuminates the disk and drives its variability.