Long-term x-ray stability and ultraviolet variability of the ionized absorption in NGC 3783

Abstract

We present the results of recent Chandra High-Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer and Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Origins Spectrograph observations of the nearby Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 3783, which show a strong, nonvarying X-ray warm absorber and physically related and kinematically varying UV absorption. We compare our new observations to high-resolution, high signal-to-noise archival data from 2001, allowing a unique investigation into the long-term variations of the absorption over a 12 yr period. We find no statistically significant changes in the physical properties of the X-ray absorber, but there is a significant drop of ∼40% in the UV and X-ray flux and a significant flattening of the underlying X-ray power-law slope. Large kinematic changes are seen in the UV absorbers, possibly due to radial deceleration of the material. Similar behavior is not observed in the X-ray data, likely due to its lower-velocity resolution, which shows an outflow velocity of vout ∼ -655 km s-1 in both epochs. The narrow iron Kα emission line at 6.4 keV shows no variation between epochs, and its measured width places the material producing the line at a radial distance of ∼0.03 pc from the central black hole.