1. AGN structure and Unified models
Guido Risaliti
INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri &
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

2. TODAY: Unified models: History Studying Complexity
Luminosity, Spin, BH mass, Edd. ratio;
BLR: density, cloud number, size, metallicity
Torus: distance, composition (dust/gas), covering factor
2) Are all the “ingredients” of the structure correct?
3) Any missing piece ?
Outflows, multiple tori….
Polarization
Masers
Ionization cones
M. Polletta;
Urry & Padovani 1995

3. TORUS: direct imaging Jaffe et al. 2004 Tristram et al. 2007
Greenhill et al. 2003

4. TORUS: direct imaging
Meisenheimer et al. 2008

5. TORUS: dust reverberation mapping
Pott et al. 2010

6. (dusty) TORUS: clumpy structure
Silicates absorption/emission
Nenkova et al. 2008a,b

7. Clumpy torus: Variability of NH in Seyfert Galaxies
NH variable in 23/25 sources
Timescales from
months to years
Clumpy absorber
Sub-parsec distance
Risaliti, Elvis & Nicastro 2002

8. Inner TORUS: BLR/dust free component
Low dust/gas ratio
Maiolino et al. 2001b
Missing BLR absorption in quasars
Maiolino et al. 2001a

9. Inner TORUS: BLR X-ray absorption
DNH~1023 cm-2
DT~2 days
NGC 1365
NGC 4151
DNH > 1024 cm-2
DT~10 hours
Puccetti et al. 2007
Risaliti et al. 2009
DNH~3*1023 cm-2
DT<15 days
DNH~1023 cm-2
DT~20 hours
UGC 4203
NGC 7582
Risaliti et al. 2010
Bianchi et al. 2009

10. Stratified BLR
Peterson et al. 2007

11. Dusty torus + BLR: a possible structure
104 RS

12. Complications: 1. At least two tori
Most local intermediate Seyferts
are found in edge-on galaxies
(and with NH~ cm-2)
Maiolino & Rieke 1995, Risaliti et al. 1999
Dust lanes observed

13. Complications: 1. At least two tori
Compact torus: BLR + hot dust scale ( RG)
2. Dust lanes; 100pc – kpc absorbers
Compton-thick, pc-scale torus ?
need for a C-thick reflector to explain reflection in some C-thin
AGN (NGC 5506, NGC )
(e.g. discussion in Bianchi et al on NGC 7582)

14. Complications: 2. missing BLR
Tran 2001
Bian & Gu 2009

15. Complications: 2. missing BLR
“naked” Seyferts: NGC 3147
Bianchi et al. 2009

16. Complications: 2. missing BLR
“naked” quasars: Q
Panessa et al. 2009

17. Complications: 3. how many BLR ?
From smoothness
of observed lines:
at least 108 !
Arav et al. 1998

18. Cloud structure: comets?
Maiolino et al. 2010

19. Complications: 4. stability
104 RS

20. STABILITY: Inflow / Outflow ?
104 RS

21. Outflows: 1. the “common” and “weak” ones
UV: NGC 5548 (Crenshaw et al. 2009)
X-rays: NGC 1365 (Risaliti et al. 2005)

22. Outflows: 2. the “strong” ones Optical/UV BAL, z~2 (Dunn et al. 2009)
X-rays,
PDS 456
(Reeves et al. 2009)

23. Outflows: phenomenological models

24. Outflows: phenomenological models

25. Outflows: physical models
Proga 2000

26. Large scale structure
NGC 5252: Tadhunter & Tsvetanov 1989

27. Large scale structure Mrk 573: X-rays/[O III] Mrk 573: X-rays/Radio
Bianchi et al. 2010

28. Large scale structure
Mrk 573
Bianchi et al. 2010

31. Conclusions orientation-based unification useful, and
basically correct
(too) many free parameters within the standard
unified picture
Many deviations & extra “ingredients”
New observations reveal this complexity, but also allow us to understand more and more details of the structure of AGN

32. Disk orientation: aligned with torus ?
AGNs with nuclear H2O maser disks
are NOT preferentially Compton thick
Distribution of EW([OIII]) has no
high-EW cut off, as expected with a
torus aligned with the disk
log NH (cm-2)
Zhang+ 06
Risaliti+2010 (poster)

33. Disk orientation: aligned with torus ?
Greenhill et al. 2009