Abstract for Proposal 092049
Revealing the inner disk wind in NGC1365
NGC1365 is a highly variable nearby Seyfert and the prototype X-ray
``changing--look'' AGN, whereby its line of sight column density varies by
up to two orders of magnitude. In Jan 2013, we caught the AGN in a very
bright, unobscured (type 1) state. A few months before, in April 2012,
Chandra caught NGC1365 in an extreme low state, where it resembled a
Compton-thick Seyfert 2 with no direct nuclear continuum. Here we request
a 240 ksec TOO observation with XMM to catch the extreme bright state
of NGC1365, triggered from the requested Swift monitoring of every 2
days. The high throughput of EPIC at Fe K, combined with high resolution
RGS spectra, will reveal the properties of the multi phase ionized wind
and the inner structure of this remarkable AGN.
Details on Observing Strategy and Trigger Criteria
We request two consecutive XMM orbits, triggered on the basis of the
requested Swift monitoring. We ask a response time of ~2 days. The
XMM-Newton Target Visibility Tool confirms that NGC1365 can be observed
for two 2 orbits in two temporal windows: from 2023-06-27 to 2023-08-30
and from 2023-12-28 to 2024-02-26. We ask to monitor NGC1365 every 2 days
with Swift-XRT for 1 ks within the two XMM observing windows. When the
source is observed with a Swift-XRT count rate of 0.6 cts/s or higher
(which corresponds to a 0.3-2.0 keV flux greater than 5e-12 erg/cm2/s),
XMM will start the 240 ks observation (in 2 consecutive orbits). The
maximum XMM reaction time to the triggering should be 48 hours.