RX J1301.9+2747: A highly variable seyfert galaxy with extremely soft X-ray emission

Abstract

In this paper we present a temporal and spectral analysis of X-ray data from XMM-Newton and Chandra observations of the ultrasoft and variable Seyfert galaxy RX J1301.9+2747. In both observations the source clearly displays two distinct states in the X-ray band: a long quiescent state and a short flare (or eruptive) state which differs in count rates by a factor of 5-7. The transition from the quiescent to the flare state occurs in 1-2 ks. We have observed that the quiescent state spectrum is unprecedentedly steep with a photon index Γ ∼ 7.1, and the spectrum of the flare state is flatter with Γ ∼ 4.4. X-rays above 2 keV were not significantly detected in either state. In the quiescent state, the spectrum appears to be dominated by a blackbody component of temperature about ∼30-40 eV, which is comparable to the expected maximum effective temperature from the inner accretion disk. The quiescent state, however, requires an additional steep power law, presumably arising from Comptonization by transient heated electrons. The optical spectrum from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey shows Seyfert-like narrow lines for RX J1301.9+2747, while Hubble Space Telescope imaging reveals a central point source for the object. In order to precisely determine the hard X-ray component, future longer X-ray observations are required. This will help constrain the accretion disk model for RX J1301.9+2747, and shed new light on the characteristics of the corona and accretion flows around black holes. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.