The origin of the iron lines in NGC 7213.pdf

a r X i v : a s t r o - p h / 0 3 0 7 1 4 3 v 1 8 J u l 2 0 0 3 Astronomy Astrophysics manuscript no. Ff201 February 2, 2008 (DOI: will be inserted by hand later) The origin of the iron lines in NGC 7213 S. Bianchi, G. Matt, I. Balestra, G.C. Perola Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita? degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy Received / Accepted Abstract. The analysis of a simultaneous XMM-Newton/BeppoSAX plus three previous BeppoSAX observations revealed that NGC 7213 is a rather peculiar Seyfert 1. No significant Compton reflection component was observed, while an iron line complex, best explained in terms of three narrow lines, is clearly apparent in the data. Due to the absence of the reflection component, the neutral iron line is likely not produced in a Compton-thick material, but current data do not allow to choose between a Compton-thin torus and the BLR. The two ionized iron lines from Fe XXV and Fe XXVI may be produced in a photoionized gas with a column density of a few 10 23 cm ?2 , in analogy with the case of NGC 5506. Key words. galaxies: individual: NGC 7213 - galaxies: Seyfert - X-rays: galaxies 1. Introduction Iron Kα emission lines are common features in Seyfert 1s. The profile of the line provides fundamental information on their origin. If it is produced in the innermost regions of the accre- tion disk, kinematic and relativistic effects contribute to forge a broad, asymmetric, double-peaked profile (see Fabian et al. 2000, for a review). A systematic study of the iron line profiles in more than 20 Seyfert 1s observed by ASCA suggested that most of them are likely to have broad lines (Nandra et al. 1997; Reynolds 1997). Rather surprisingly, this scenario is not being confirmed by XMM-Newton and Chandra. Relativistically broadened lines are detected in only a few sources (Nandra et al. 1999; Wilms et al. 2001; Turner et al. 2002; Fabian et al. 2002), and often the profiles and/or time behaviour are not what expected from simple models. The reason for this