X-ray absorption variability in NGC 4507

Abstract

We present a complete spectral analysis of an XMM-Newton and Chandra campaign of the obscured AGN in NGC 4507, consisting of six observations spanning a period of six months, ranging from 2010 June to December. We detect strong absorption variability on time-scales between 1.5 and 4 months, suggesting that the obscuring material consists of gas clouds at parsec-scale distance. The lack of significant variability on shorter time-scales suggests that this event is not due to absorption by broad-line region (BLR) clouds, which was instead found in other studies of similar sources. This shows that a single, universal structure of the absorber (either BLR clouds, or the parsec-scale torus) is not enough to reproduce the observed complexity of the X-ray absorption features of this AGN. © 2013 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.