# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The spectra of Seyfert (Sey) 2 galaxies detected in X-rays show absorption by neutral matter significantly in excess of the galactic one along the line of sight (Smith and Done 1996, Turner et al. 1997a). On the contrary Sey1s do not exhibit evidence for intrinsic absorption by cold material. This difference is interpreted as a further evidence in favour of the unification model, which states that the discriminating parameter between the two Sey types is the observer’s orientation with respect to an obscured molecular torus. It follows that the intrinsic spectra of Sey1s and 2s should be the same once the effects of the torus absorbing material are properly accounted for. We have tested this expectation against a sample of 5 Sey2s observed by BeppoSAX during the AO1: NGC2110, NGC7172, NGC4507, Mkn 3 and NGC7674. In this contribution preliminary results are presented with emphasis on the role of the various spectral components.

## 2 Seyfert 2 broad band spectral characteristics

The 2-10 keV band is the one most effected by the torus material both in terms of absorption and reprocessing. In sources having N<sub>H</sub> $`<`$10<sup>24</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup>, the matter is optically thin and the intrinsic emission should be visible above a given energy (generally a few keV); when N<sub>H</sub> is around a few 10<sup>24</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup> only X-rays in the 10-100 keV region can pass through the torus. Beside absorbing the primary emission, the torus is also responsible for reflecting the continuum (Ghisellini et al. 1994); thus a bump in the 10-50 keV region similar to what observed in Sey1 is expected. An iron line produced either via transmission through (Leahy and Creighton 1993) and/or scattering- reflection (Ghisellini et al. 1994) by the absorbing material should also be observable: expected values of the iron line equivalent widths (EW) range from 100 eV up to $``$ 1keV for high enough columns, i.e N<sub>H</sub> $``$ 10<sup>23</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup>. For column densities in excess of 10<sup>25</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup>, the absorbing matter is Compton thick and the intrinsic continuum is not directly visible; in this case only the (unabsorbed) emission reflected by the torus (but also scattered in warm material above the nucleus) should be detected by the observer and the iron line being measured against a depressed continuum is expected to have an EW $``$ 1keV (Maiolino et al. 1998). Moreover, a (absorbed) reflection component and associated iron fluorescence line due to an accretion disk (as observed in Sey1s , see Perola et al. this proceeding) should be present in all Sey2s. However, at this stage of the analysis, this component has been neglected for the sake of simplicity and also in view of the fact that in Sey2s it should be a second order effect because of the edge-on geometry and of the high N<sub>H</sub> involved. Table 1 lists for the observed sample of Sey2s the spectral parameters deduced by fitting their broad band X-ray spectra with a baseline model which includes an absorbed power law, a reflection component due the torus and a narrow Fe K gaussian line; to account for the low energy data another power law having the photon index thight to the first one is also included in the fit. The uncertainties quoted correspond to 90$`\%`$ confidence for two interesting parameters. One striking result of Table 1 is the wide range of values observed for the parameter R , i.e the relative amount of reflection compared to the directly viewed primary power law. We range from sources having no or little reflection like NGC2110 and NGC4507 to objects reflection dominated like Mkn 3 or even more NGC7674. In this latter source the primary emission is totally absorbed and only radiation reprocessed by the torus is seen making the object a likely Compton thick candidate (see Malaguti et al. 1998 for details). While broadly speaking the wide range in R is expected in the unified model, as both Compton thin and thick sources are predicted, the observation of low reflection in some sources requires either that the torus is intrinsically optically thin or that it covers a small angle at the source. In this case, the small reflection observed maybe compatible with an origin in the accretion disk viewed edge-on; at least for the case of NGC2110 this interpretation would be in agreement with the observation of a broad relativistic component in the iron line (Weaver $`\&`$ Reynolds 1998). As expected, an iron line at 6.4 keV is clearly detected in each source and consistent with theoretical expectations. In Compton thin cases, the line is compatible with transmission in the torus (NGC2110 and NGC4507) possibly coupled with a reflection line component (NGC7172). In Mkn 3, the absorption is high enough to depress the continuum significantly leading to a line with EW $``$ 1 keV which is the result of both transmission and reflection in the torus (Cappi et al. 1998). In NGC7674, as the source is Compton thick, the line is simply the result of reflection in the torus (Malaguti et al. 1998).

Table 1: Seyfert 2 Galaxies in the sample   
Source Name N<sub>H</sub> EW  R $`\alpha `$ F<sub>2-10keV</sub> F<sub>20-100keV</sub>    NGC2110 4.1$`\pm 0.2`$ 180$`\pm 30`$ $`<`$0.2 1.7$`\pm 0.1`$ 3.0 5.8  NGC7172<sup>N</sup> 11.5$`{}_{10.7}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+12.5}`$ 224$`{}_{54}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+650}`$ 1.0 $`{}_{0.4}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+2.7}`$ 1.9$`\pm 0.3`$ 1.0 3.3  NGC4507<sup>N</sup> 70$`{}_{15}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+15}`$ 120$`{}_{68}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+192}`$ 0.40 $`{}_{0.2}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.2}`$ 2.0$`\pm 0.1`$ 3.6 15.0  Mkn 3 130$`{}_{25}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+15}`$ 997$`{}_{307}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+300}`$ 0.9 $`{}_{0.1}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.1}`$ 1.8$`\pm 0.1`$ 0.65 11.3  NGC7674 $`>`$1000 900$`{}_{299}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+470}`$ $`>`$ 40 1.9$`\pm 0.2`$ 0.05 1.0  

in units of 10<sup>22</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup>,  in units of eV,  observed flux in units of 10<sup>-11</sup> erg cm <sup>-2</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>   
<sup>N</sup> preliminary results to take with care.   

In all our sources, the values of the intrinsic power law photon index are similar and well constrained in the range 1.7-2.0; therefore the primary component of the emission bears no differences from what observed in Sey1s (see Perola et al. this proceedings). This is also true for those sources previously reported as flat, i.e NGC2110 and NGC7172 (Smith and Done 1996 and Guainazzi et al. 1998) highlighting the crucial role of the PDS in estimating the primary power law component. To put a more stringent constrain on the intrinsic slope, a mean Sey2 spectrum has been obtained by summing all data in the 20-100 keV range. Note that the absorption affecting Mkn 3 is negligible above 20 keV thus allowing this source to be added too; viceversa NGC7674 has not been considered for its different spectral shape in the PDS range.The resulting spectrum is shown in figure 1; a simple power law fit to the data gives a photon index of 1.81 $`\pm `$ 0.05. We have also tested individual source spectra for a high energy cut-off. In the case of Sey2s this is not straightforward due to the complexity involved in the spectral fitting. Nevertheless, our data suggest that also in type 2 objects the typical cut-off energy is above 100 keV as observed in Sey1s (Perola et al. this proceedings); for example in Mkn 3 the lower limit on the cutoff energy is 150 keV at $``$ 99% confidence (Cappi et al. 1998).

## 3 Conclusions

Preliminary BeppoSAX results on a small sample of bright Sey2 galaxies, while confirming the basic expectations of the unified theory, i.e. a primary shape similar to Sey1s but distorted by absorption and reprocessing in the torus cold material, also highlights the need for a better understanding of the role of the torus in these sources. Hopefully this will be possible by enlarging the sample with data from more sources covering a broader range of the space parameters.