Speaker
Description
We report on an optical (SDSS) and X-ray (XMM-Newton) study of an optically selected
sample of four dual AGN systems at projected separations of 30–60 kpc. Six of eight objects are obscured in X-rays with NH~10^23 cm-2; three of those, whose X-ray spectrum is dominated by a reflection component, are likely Compton-thick. This finding is in agreement with the hypothesis that galaxy encounters are effective in driving gas inflow toward the nuclear region, thus increasing the obscuration. We compare the absorption properties in our dual AGN with those in larger samples observed in X-rays but selected in different ways (optical, IR and hard X-rays). We find that the obscured (NH~10^22 cm-2) AGN fraction within the larger sample is 84\pm4 per cent (accounting for the 90 per cent error on the NH measure) up to large pair separations (100 kpc). i.e. statistically higher with respect to the fraction of obscured AGN in isolated galaxies found in X-ray surveys. The talk will reflect on broader implications of these findings and will present future perspective
| Affiliation | INAF/IAPS |
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