AGN Obscuration

Observational Properties of AGN Obscuration During the Peak of Accretion Growth

Vijarnwannaluk et al. 2024

In this work we investigated the properties of dusty material surrounding the supermassive black hole. Dusty material surrounding the black hole can exist only if the SMBH is not overly luminous for the black hole mass. This means that dusty gas surrounding black holes can only exist in specific areas of the Hydrogen column density and Eddington ratio diagram. We found that on average, most dusty AGN have lower Eddington ratio than unabsorbed AGN and the critical effective Eddington ratio which will trigger a blow-out of the dusty gas. However, a siginfican fraction of dusty AGN are above the critcal effective Eddington ratio, indicating dusty gas which is not physically bound by the SMBH. We also find evidence of dusty-free gas in the population of unabsorbed AGN.