Compton-thick AGN in the NuSTAR Era. IV. A Deep NuSTAR and XMM-Newton View of the Candidate Compton-thick AGN in ESO 116-G018

摘要

We present a 2–78 keV spectral analysis of the deep NuSTAR and XMM-Newton observation of a nearby Seyfert 2 galaxy, ESO 116-G018, which is selected as a candidate Compton-thick (CT) active galactic nucleus (AGN) based on a previous Chandra–Swift–BAT study. Through our analysis, the source is, for the first time, confirmed to be a CT AGN at a >3σ confidence level, with the "line-of-sight" column density N H,Z?=?[2.46–2.76]?×?1024 cm?2. The "global average" column density of the obscuring torus is N H,S?=?[0.46–0.62]?×?1024 cm?2, which suggests a clumpy, rather than uniform, distribution of the obscuring material surrounding the accreting supermassive black hole. The excellent-quality data given by the combined NuSTAR and XMM-Newton observations enable us to produce a strong constraint on the covering factor of the torus of ESO 116-G018, which is found to be f c ?=?[0.13–0.15]. We also estimate the bolometric luminosity from the broadband X-ray spectrum to be L bol?=?[2.57–3.41]?×?1044 erg s?1.