Probing the nuclear and circumnuclear properties of NGC 6300 using X-ray observations

Abstract

We present the results obtained from a detailed X-ray timing and spectral analysis of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 6300 by using observations from the Suzaku observatory, theChandra X-ray Observatory and the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array(NuSTAR) mission between 2007 and 2016. We calculate the variance and the rms fractional variability of the source in different energy bands and we find variabilities in various energy bands. Spectral properties of the source are studied by using various phenomenological and physical models. The properties of the Compton clouds, reflection, Fe Kα line emission and soft X-ray excess are studied in detail. Several physical parameters of the source are extracted and investigated to establish the presence/absence of any correlation between them. We also investigate the nature of the circumnuclear ‘torus’ and we find that the torus is not uniform, but clumpy. The observed changes in the line-of-sight column density can be explained in terms of transiting clouds. The iron line-emitting region is found to be different in the different epochs of observations. We also observe that the torus and the nucleus independently evolve over the years.