AGN dust tori at low and high luminosities
| dc.creator | Hoenig, Sebastian F. | |
| dc.creator | Beckert, Thomas | |
| dc.date | 2007-07-02 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T08:31:17Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T08:31:17Z | |
| dc.description | A cornerstone of AGN unification schemes is the presence of an optically and geometrically thick dust torus. It provides the obscuration to explain the difference between type 1 and type 2 AGN. We investigate the influence of the dust distribution on the Eddington limit of the torus. For smooth dust distributions, the Eddingtion limit on the dust alone is 5 orders of magnitudes below the limit for electron scattering in a fully ionized plasma, while a clumpy dust torus has an Eddington limit slightly larger than the classical one. We study the behaviour of a clumpy torus at low and high AGN luminosities. For low luminosities of the order of ~10^42 erg/s, the torus changes its characteristics and obscuration becomes insufficient. In the high luminosity regime, the clumpy torus can show a behaviour which is consistent with the "receding torus" picture. The derived luminosity-dependent fraction of type-2-objects agrees with recent observational results. Moreover, the luminosity-dependent covering factor in a clumpy torus may explain the presence of broad-line AGN with high column densities in X-rays. | |
| dc.description | 5 pages, 0 figures; Accepted for publication in MNRAS | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/0707.0162 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.0162 | |
| dc.identifier | Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 380 (2007) 1172 | |
| dc.identifier | doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.12157.x | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/138461 | |
| dc.subject | Astrophysics | |
| dc.title | AGN dust tori at low and high luminosities | |
| dc.type | text |