Multiwavelength study of NGC 1365: The obscured active nucleus and off-nuclear compact X-ray sources

Abstract

We present a multi-wavelength study of the active nucleus and the off-nuclear X-ray sources in the nearby spiral galaxy, NGC 1365 using three simultaneous UV/X-ray observations by AstroSat over a two months period and archival IR observations performed with Spitzer and Herschel. Utilising the data from the Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT) on-board AstroSat, we find spectral variability mainly caused by the variation in the X-ray column density, (NH ∼ 1022–1023 cm−2). With the accurate spatial resolution of the UVIT onboard AstroSat, we separate the intrinsic AGN flux from the host galaxy emission and then correct for the Galactic and the internal reddening. We detect no significant variation in the NUV emission over the observation period. The AGN in FUV band is undetectable due to heavy intrinsic extinction. Further, the multi-wavelength IR/UV/X-ray AGN SED reveals that the AGN is in a low luminosity phase with accretion rate ∼ 0.01 LEdd. The steady UV emission and strong X-ray absorption variability suggest that the obscuring clouds are likely compact and affect the compact X-ray source only and do not possibly cover the extended UV emitting region. In addition, the UVIT is able to resolve two bright spots at a radius of 7″ (∼6.3 Kpc) from the central nucleus in the South-West (SW) direction. In the UVIT image of the entire galaxy, we identify UV counterparts to four Chandra identified bright X-ray sources. One well-known ultra-luminous X-ray source (ULX) NGC 1365 X2 is identified with its UV counterpart at 86″ from the nucleus in the north-east (NE) direction from the active nucleus.