The Complex X-Ray Obscuration Environment in the Radio-loud Type 2 Quasar 3C 223

Abstract

Abstract 3C 223 is a radio-loud, Type 2 quasar at z = 0.1365 with an intriguing X-ray Multi-mirror Mission (XMM)-Newton spectrum that implicated it as a rare, Compton-thick (N H ≳ 1.25 × 1024 cm−2) active galactic nucleus (AGN). We obtained contemporaneous XMM-Newton and Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) spectra to fit the broadband X-ray spectrum with the physically motivated MYTorus and borus02 models. We confirm earlier results that the obscuring gas is patchy with both high (though not Compton-thick) levels of obscuration (N H > 1023 cm−2) and gas clouds with column densities up to an order of magnitude lower. The spectral fitting results indicate additional physical processes beyond those modeled in the spectral grids of MYTorus and borus02 impact the emergent spectrum: the Compton-scattering region may be extended beyond the putative torus; a ring of heavy Compton-thick material blocks most X-ray emission along the line of sight; or the radio jet is beamed, boosting the production of Fe Kα line photons in the global medium compared with what is observed along the line of sight. We revisit a recent claim that no radio-loud Compton-thick AGN have yet been conclusively shown to exist, finding three reported cases of radio-loud AGN with global average (but not line-of-sight) column densities that are Compton thick. Now that it is possible to separately determine line-of-sight and global column densities, inhomogeneity in the obscuring medium has consequences for how we interpet the spectrum and classify an AGN as “Compton thick.”