M. Guainazzi et al., On the hypothesis of an advection-dominated flow in the core of NGC 1052: new constraints from a BeppoSAX observation, ASTRON ASTR, 364(2), 2000, pp. L80-L84
We report the results of a broadband (0.1-100 keV) X-ray observation of the
nearby elliptical galaxy NGC 1052, performed with the BeppoSAX observatory
. We confirm the presence of a bright (2-10 keV luminosity similar to4 x 10
(42) erg s(-1)) and strongly absorbed (N-H similar to 2 x 10(23) cm(-2)) X-
ray source. The flatness of the X-ray spectrum (photon index, Gamma, simila
r or equal to1.4), the estimated low accretion rate ((m) over dot equivalen
t to (M) over dot/(M) over dot(Edd) similar to 10(-4)) and the radio-to-X-r
ay spectral energy distribution suggest that this observation may represent
the first direct measurement above 10 keV of an accretion-dominated flow i
n an elliptical galaxy.