2012/10/10 by F. Marin, Frédéric Marin, Marin, F. +2
Physics and Astronomy · #85-06 #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #J.2.3 #J.2.9 #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #acm:85-06 #astro-ph.GA #astro-ph.HE #msc:85-06
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1210.2899
To appear in the Proceedings of the Annual meeting of the French Society of Astronomy and Astrophysics 2012
arxiv created 2012/10/10 · openalex publication_date 2012/10/10 · arxiv updated 2012/10/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In this research note, we start exploring the influence of the narrow line region (NLR) on the optical/UV continuum polarization of active galactic nuclei (AGN). We have upgraded our previous 3-component model of a thermal Seyfert nucleus that was composed of an equatorial, optically thin electron disc, a circumnuclear dusty torus, and a pair of collimated, optically thin electron winds (Marin et al.2012b). We have added a dusty extension with low optical depth to the outflows to account for continuum scattering and absorption inside the NLR. A spectropolarimetric comparison between our AGN models with and without NLR reprocessing is carried out. It turns out that the NLR can alter and even suppress the observed polarization dichotomy between type-1 and type-2 AGN. For type-2 AGN, it also significantly decreases the expected percentage of polarization and alters its spectral shape. While the NLR makes it more difficult to reproduce the observed polarization in type-1 objects, it helps to explain spectropolarimetry observations of type-2 objects. Further studies including clumpy media need to be carried out.