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Hauptverfasser: Gursahani, Yash A., Liu, Tingting, Mushotzky, Richard, Reynolds, Christopher S., Koss, Michael
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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Online-Zugang:https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.11874
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author Gursahani, Yash A.
Liu, Tingting
Mushotzky, Richard
Reynolds, Christopher S.
Koss, Michael
author_facet Gursahani, Yash A.
Liu, Tingting
Mushotzky, Richard
Reynolds, Christopher S.
Koss, Michael
contents We investigate the possibility of a binary supermassive black hole system at the center of MCG+11--11--032, a local (z = 0.036) Seyfert 2 galaxy. Prior work with stacked Swift/XRT spectra suggested the presence of two Fe K$α$ lines (at 6.16 keV and 6.56 keV) with 2$σ$ confidence. This could be consistent with a prediction of several hydrodynamical models, in which each black hole hosts a mini-disk and contributes one Doppler-shifted Fe K$α$ line to the total spectrum. Another study using a single exposure from Chandra/ACIS did not find evidence for a double line. Here, we conduct follow-up with two epochs of XMM-Newton/EPIC data spaced $\sim$6 months apart. After fitting our spectra with models from the previous two studies, we do not find evidence for a double iron line in either observation. Our best-fit model yields $Γ= 1.63^{+0.20}_{-0.21}$ and $N_\text{H}/10^{22} \text{ cm}^{-2} = 17.9^{+2.7}_{-2.4}$ for the first epoch, and $Γ= 1.46^{+0.22}_{-0.24}$ and $N_\text{H}/10^{22} \text{ cm}^{-2} = 17.1^{+2.7}_{-2.4}$ for the second. We compare our spectral parameters with those derived in past work on this source, finding broad agreement with prior datasets. Lastly, we discuss the properties of MCG+11--11--032 alongside samples of Seyfert 2 galaxies from the literature, finding that it is consistent with this population and the single AGN scenario.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_11874
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An XMM-Newton Analysis of the Supermassive Black Hole Binary Candidate MCG+11--11--032
Gursahani, Yash A.
Liu, Tingting
Mushotzky, Richard
Reynolds, Christopher S.
Koss, Michael
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
We investigate the possibility of a binary supermassive black hole system at the center of MCG+11--11--032, a local (z = 0.036) Seyfert 2 galaxy. Prior work with stacked Swift/XRT spectra suggested the presence of two Fe K$α$ lines (at 6.16 keV and 6.56 keV) with 2$σ$ confidence. This could be consistent with a prediction of several hydrodynamical models, in which each black hole hosts a mini-disk and contributes one Doppler-shifted Fe K$α$ line to the total spectrum. Another study using a single exposure from Chandra/ACIS did not find evidence for a double line. Here, we conduct follow-up with two epochs of XMM-Newton/EPIC data spaced $\sim$6 months apart. After fitting our spectra with models from the previous two studies, we do not find evidence for a double iron line in either observation. Our best-fit model yields $Γ= 1.63^{+0.20}_{-0.21}$ and $N_\text{H}/10^{22} \text{ cm}^{-2} = 17.9^{+2.7}_{-2.4}$ for the first epoch, and $Γ= 1.46^{+0.22}_{-0.24}$ and $N_\text{H}/10^{22} \text{ cm}^{-2} = 17.1^{+2.7}_{-2.4}$ for the second. We compare our spectral parameters with those derived in past work on this source, finding broad agreement with prior datasets. Lastly, we discuss the properties of MCG+11--11--032 alongside samples of Seyfert 2 galaxies from the literature, finding that it is consistent with this population and the single AGN scenario.
title An XMM-Newton Analysis of the Supermassive Black Hole Binary Candidate MCG+11--11--032
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.11874