X-ray Properties of the Luminous Quasar PG 1634+706 at \(z=1.337\) from SRG and XMM-Newton Data

Abstract

In the fall of 2019, during the in-flight calibration phase of the SRG observatory, the onboard eROSITA and Mikhail Pavlinsky ART-XC telescopes carried out a series of observations of PG 1634+706 — one of the most luminous (an X-ray luminosity \({\sim}10^{46}\) erg s\({}^{-1}\)) quasars in the Universe at \(z<2\). Approximately at the same dates this quasar was also observed by the XMM-Newton observatory. Although the object had already been repeatedly studied in X-rays previously, its new observations allowed its energy spectrum to be measured more accurately in the wide range 1–30 keV (in the quasar rest frame). Its spectrum can be described by a two-component model that consists of a power-law continuum with a slope \(\Gamma\approx 1.9\) and a broadened iron emission line at an energy of about 6.4 keV. The X-ray variability of the quasar was also investigated. On time scales of the order of several hours (here and below, in the source rest frame) the X-ray luminosity does not exhibit a statistically significant variability. However, it changed noticeably from observation to observation in the fall of 2019, having increased approximately by a factor of 1.5 in 25 days. A comparison of the new SRG and XMM-Newton measurements with the previous measurements of other X-ray observatories has shown that in the entire 17-year history of observations of the quasar PG 1634+706 its X-ray luminosity has varied by no more than a factor of 2.5, while the variations on time scales of several weeks and several years are comparable in amplitude.