Relativistic iron lines at high redshifts

Abstract

The shape and the intensity of the 6.4 keV iron line bring unique information on the geometrical and physical properties of the supermassive black hole and the surrounding accreting gas at the very center of Active Galactic Nuclei. While there is convincing evidence of a relativistically broadened iron line in a few nearby bright objects, their properties at larger distances are basically unknown. We have searched for the presence of iron lines by fully exploiting Chandra observations in the deep fields. The line is clearly detected in the average spectra of about 250 sources stacked in several redshift bins over the range z=0.5-4.0. We discuss their average properties with particular emphasis on the presence and intensity of a broad component. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.