The story of one Seyfert: from intriguingly ultrasoft to unremarkably average

Abstract

AbstractWe use 4 broadband SEDs spanning 7 years to study the spectral shape and long term variability of RE J2248-511: an unusual AGN discovered in the extreme-UV by the ROSAT Wide Field Camera. This implies a large ultrasoft X-ray flux, which is typical of narrow-line Seyfert 1s, yet its optical lines are clearly broader than the NLS1 definition allows. Here we show that the continuum SED for the brightest epoch dataset is consistent with the mean SED of a standard quasar, and matches well to that from an XMM–SDSS sample of AGN with M/M⊙ ~ 108 and L/LEdd ~ 0.2. All the correlated optical and soft X-ray variability can be due entirely to a major absorption event. The only remarkable aspect of this AGN is that there is no measurable intrinsic X-ray absorption column in the brightest epoch dataset. The observed FUV flux is determined by the combination of this and the fact that the source lies within a local absorption hole. RE J2248-511, which once defied classification, demonstrates that characterisation of such objects requires multi-epoch, multi-wavelength campaigns.