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A method has been developed to load tellurium into liquid scintillator so as to permit searches for neutrinoless double beta decay with high sensitivity. The approach involves the synthesis of an oil-soluble tellurium compound from telluric acid and an organic diol. The process utilises distillable chemicals that can be safely handled underground and affords low radioactive backgrounds, low optical absorption and high light yields at loading levels of at least several percent Te by weight., Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures

We present the results of simultaneous Suzaku and NuSTAR observations of the nearest Low-Luminosity Active Galactic Nucleus (LLAGN), M81*. The spectrum is well described by a cut-off power law plus narrow emission lines from Fe K$\alpha$, Fe XXV and Fe XXVI. There is no evidence of Compton reflection from an optically thick disc, and we obtain the strongest constraint on the reflection fraction in M81* to date, with a best-fit value of $R = 0.0$ with an upper limit of $R < 0.1$. The Fe K$\alpha$ line may be produced in optically thin, $N_H = 1 \times 10^{23}$ cm$^{-2}$, gas located in the equatorial plane that could be the broad line region. The ionized iron lines may originate in the hot, inner accretion flow. The X-ray continuum shows significant variability on $\sim 40$ ks timescales suggesting that the primary X-ray source is $\sim 100$s of gravitational radii in size. If this X-ray source illuminates any putative optically thick disc, the weakness of reflection implies that such a disc lies outside a few $\times 10^3$ gravitational radii. An optically thin accretion flow inside a truncated optically thick disc appears to be a common feature of LLAGN that are accreting at only a tiny fraction of the Eddington limit., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, to appear in MNARS

We report the results of intensive X-ray, UV and optical monitoring of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 4593 with Swift. There is no intrinsic flux-related spectral change in the the variable components in any band with small apparent variations due only to contamination by a second constant component, possibly a (hard) reflection component in the X-rays and the (red) host galaxy in the UV/optical bands. Relative to the shortest wavelength band, UVW2, the lags of the other UV and optical bands are mostly in agreement with the predictions of reprocessing of high energy emission from an accretion disc. The U-band lag is, however, far larger than expected, almost certainly because of reprocessed Balmer continuum emission from the more distant broad line region gas. The UVW2 band is well correlated with the X-rays but lags by ~6x more than expected if the UVW2 results from reprocessing of X-rays on the accretion disc. However, if the lightcurves are filtered to remove variations on timescales >5d, the lag approaches the expectation from disc reprocessing. MEMEcho analysis shows that direct X-rays can be the driver of most of the variations in the UV/optical bands as long as the response functions for those bands all have long tails (up to 10d) in addition to a strong peak (from disc reprocessing) at short lag (<1d). We interpret the tails as due to reprocessing from the surrounding gas. Comparison of X-ray to UVW2 and UVW2 to V-band lags for 4 AGN, including NGC 4593, shows that all have UVW2 to V-band lags which exceed the expectations from disc resprocessing by factor < 2. However the X-ray to UVW2 lags are, mostly, in greater excess from the expectations from disc reprocessing and differ between AGN. The largest excess is in NGC 4151. Absorption and scattering may be affecting X-ray to UV lags., Comment: 18 pages, 17 figures. Submitted to Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Swift monitoring of NGC 4151 with ~6 hr sampling over a total of 69 days in early 2016 is used to construct light curves covering five bands in the X-rays (0.3-50 keV) and six in the ultraviolet (UV)/optical (1900-5500 A). The three hardest X-ray bands (>2.5 keV) are all strongly correlated with no measurable interband lag while the two softer bands show lower variability and weaker correlations. The UV/optical bands are significantly correlated with the X-rays, lagging ~3-4 days behind the hard X-rays. The variability within the UV/optical bands is also strongly correlated, with the UV appearing to lead the optical by ~0.5-1 day. This combination of >~3 day lags between the X-rays and UV and <~1 day lags within the UV/optical appears to rule out the "lamp-post" reprocessing model in which a hot, X-ray emitting corona directly illuminates the accretion disk, which then reprocesses the energy in the UV/optical. Instead, these results appear consistent with the Gardner & Done picture in which two separate reprocessings occur: first, emission from the corona illuminates an extreme-UV-emitting toroidal component that shields the disk from the corona; this then heats the extreme-UV component which illuminates the disk and drives its variability., Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, 7 tables. To appear in ApJ April 2017 issue. This version incorporates minor revisions to conform to published version and corrects the links to the author names above

We study multi-wavelength variability of a bare Seyfert 1 galaxy Fairall~9 using \swift{} monitoring observations consisting of $165$ usable pointings spanning nearly two years and covering six UV/optical bands and X-rays. Fairall~9 is highly variable in all bands though the variability amplitude decreases from X-ray to optical bands. The variations in the X-ray and UV/optical bands are strongly correlated. Our reverberation mapping analysis using the {\tt JAVALIN} tool shows that the variation in the UV/optical bands lag behind the variations in the X-ray band by $\sim 2-10{\rm~days}$. These lag measurements strongly suggest that the optical/UV variations are mainly caused by variations in the X-rays, and the origin of most of the optical/UV emission is X-ray reprocessing. The observed lags are found to vary as $\tau\propto\lambda^{1.36\pm0.13}$, consistent with the prediction, $\tau\propto\lambda^{4/3}$, for X-ray reprocessing in a standard accretion disc. However, the predicted lags for an standard accretion disc with X-ray reprocessing using black hole mass ($M_{BH} \sim 2.6\times10^{8}~M_{\odot}$) estimated from the reverberation mapping of broad emission lines and accretion rate relative to the Eddington rate ($\dot{m_E} =0.02$) are shorter than the observed lags. These observations suggest that accretion disc in Fairall~9 is larger than that predicted by the standard disc model, and confirm similar findings in a few other Seyfert 1 galaxies such as NGC~5548., Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We present X-ray spectral variability of 24 local active galactic nuclei (AGN) from the Palomar sample of nearby galaxies, as observed mainly by Swift. From hardness ratio measurements, we find that 18 AGN with low accretion rates show hardening with increasing count rate, converse to the softer-when-brighter behaviour normally observed in AGN with higher accretion rates. Two AGN show softening with increasing count rate, two show more complex behaviour, and two do not show any simple relationship. Sufficient data were available for the spectra of 13 AGN to be summed in flux-bins. In 9 of these sources, correlated luminosity-dependent changes in the photon index ($\Gamma$) of a power-law component are found to be the main cause of hardness variability. For 6 objects, with a low accretion rate as a fraction of the Eddington rate (\.m$\mathrm{_{Edd}}$), $\Gamma$ is anticorrelated with \.m$\mathrm{_{Edd}}$, i.e. `harder-when-brighter' behaviour is observed. The 3 higher-\.m$\mathrm{_{Edd}}$-rate objects show a positive correlation between $\Gamma$ and \.m$\mathrm{_{Edd}}$. This transition from harder-when-brighter at low \.m$\mathrm{_{Edd}}$s to softer-when-brighter at high \.m$\mathrm{_{Edd}}$s can be explained by a change in the dominant source of seed-photons for X-ray emission from cyclo-synchrotron emission from the Comptonising corona itself to thermal seed-photons from the accretion disc. This transition is also seen in the `hard state' of black hole X-ray binaries (BHXRBs). The results support the idea that LINERs are analogues of BHXRBs in the hard state and that Seyferts are analogues of BHXRBs in either the high-accretion-rate end of the hard state or in the hard-intermediate state., Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

I have created, for public use, a Python code allowing the simulation of light curves with any given power spectral density and any probability density function, following the algorithm described in Emmanoulopoulos et al. 2013. The simulated products have exactly the same variability and statistical properties as the observed light curves. The code and its documentation are available at: https://github.com/samconnolly/DELightcurveSimulation Note that a Mathematica code of the algorithm is given in Emmanoulopoulos et al. [arXiv:1305.0304], Comment: Research note on a published statistical methodology

We report on the largest Swift AGN monitoring program, concerning UV/optical variability in Seyferts. From 554 observations, over a 750d period, of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 5548, we see (McHardy et al. 2014) a good overall correlation between the X-ray and UV/optical bands,particularly on short timescales (tens of days). The UVOT bands are found to lag behind X-rays with a lag scaling as wavelength to the power 1.23 +/- 0.31, in excellent agreement with that expected (1.33) if UV/optical variability arises from reprocessing of X-rays by the accretion disc. However, the observed lags are ~3 times longer than expected from a standard Shakura-Sunyaev disc, raising real concerns about the detailed validity of this model. The results can be explained with a slightly larger mass and accretion rate, and a hotter disc, or if the disc is clumpy, thereby enhancing the emission from the outer regions., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, to appear in "Swift: 10 years of discovery", Proceedings of Science

We present analysis of the long-term X-ray spectral variability of Seyfert galaxies as observed by Swift, which provides well-sampled observations over a much larger flux range and a much longer timescale than any other X-ray observatory. We examine long-term variability of three AGN: NGC 1365 (see Connolly et al. 2014), Mkn 335 and NGC 5548. At high fluxes, the 0.5-10 keV spectra soften with increasing flux, as seen previously within the 2-10 keV band. However, at very low fluxes the sources also become very soft. We have fitted a number of models to the data and find that both intrinsic luminosity variability and variable absorption are required to explain the observations. In some systems, e.g. NGC 1365, the best explanation is a two-component wind model in which one component represents direct emission absorbed by a disc wind wind, with the absorbing column inversely proportional to the intrinsic luminosity, and the second component represents unabsorbed emission reflected from the wind. In other AGN the situation is more complex., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figues, to appear in "Swift: 10 years of discovery", Proceedings of Science

Lags measured from correlated X-ray/UV/optical monitoring of AGN allow us to determine whether UV/optical variability is driven by reprocessing of X-rays or X-ray variability is driven by UV/optical seed photon variations. We present the results of the largest study to date of the relationship between the X-ray, UV and optical variability in an AGN with 554 observations, over a 750d period, of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 with Swift. There is a good overall correlation between the X-ray and UV/optical bands, particularly on short timescales (tens of days). These bands lag the X-ray band with lags which are proportional to wavelength to the power 1.23+/-0.31. This power is very close to the power (4/3) expected if short timescale UV/optical variability is driven by reprocessing of X-rays by a surrounding accretion disc. The observed lags, however, are longer than expected from a standard Shakura-Sunyaev accretion disc with X-ray heating, given the currently accepted black hole mass and accretion rate values, but can be explained with a slightly larger mass and accretion rate, and a generally hotter disc. Some long term UV/optical variations are not paralleled exactly in the X-rays, suggesting an additional component to the UV/optical variability arising perhaps from accretion rate perturbations propagating inwards through the disc., Comment: 6 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

We present long-term (months-years) X-ray spectral variability of the Seyfert 1.8 galaxy NGC 1365 as observed by Swift, which provides well sampled observations over a much longer timescale (6 years) and a much larger flux range than is afforded by other observatories. At very low luminosities the spectrum is very soft, becoming rapidly harder as the luminosity increases and then, above a particular luminosity, softening again. At a given flux level, the scatter in hardness ratio is not very large, meaning that the spectral shape is largely determined by the luminosity. The spectra were therefore summed in luminosity bins and fitted with a variety of models. The best fitting model consists of two power laws, one unabsorbed and another, more luminous, which is absorbed. In this model, we find a range of intrinsic 0.5-10.0 keV luminosities of approximately 1.1-3.5 ergs/s, and a very large range of absorbing columns, of approximately 10^22 - 10^24 cm^-2. Interestingly, we find that the absorbing column decreases with increasing luminosity, but that this result is not due to changes in ionisation. We suggest that these observations might be interpreted in terms of a wind model in which the launch radius varies as a function of ionising flux and disc temperature and therefore moves out with increasing accretion rate, i.e. increasing X-ray luminosity. Thus, depending on the inclination angle of the disc relative to the observer, the absorbing column may decrease as the accretion rate goes up. The weaker, unabsorbed, component may be a scattered component from the wind., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

We present phase-resolved spectroscopic observations of the low-mass X-ray binary V926 Sco (4U 1735-44), covering the orbital period of 0.23d, obtained with the Walter Baade 6.5m Magellan Telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory in June 2010 and June 2011. We use H$\alpha$ radial velocities to derive a systemic velocity of -109 $\pm$ 4 km s$^{-1}$. The FWHM of the lines observed in common with previous authors are significantly lower during our observations suggesting much reduced velocities in the system. The equivalent width of the Bowen fluorescence lines with respect to He II $\lambda$4686 are factors of two or more lower during our observations in comparison to those previously reported for the system, suggesting reduced irradiation of the secondary. Doppler and modulation tomography of H$\alpha$ and He II $\lambda$4686 show assymmetric emission that can be attributed to a bulge in the accretion disk, as inferred from He II observations by previous authors. The X-ray fluxes from the source at times concurrent with the optical observations are significantly lower during our observations than during optical observations taken in 2003. We suggest that the system is in a lower accretion state compared to earlier observations; this explains both the lower velocities observed from the disk and the reduction of emission due to Bowen fluorescence detected from the secondary., Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables, Accepted for publication in ApJ

Aims: We investigate the physical nature of the X-ray emitting source 1RXS J165443.5-191620 through optical photometry and time-resolved spectroscopy. Methods: Optical photometry is obtained from a variety of telescopes all over the world spanning about 27 days. Additionally, time-resolved spectroscopy is obtained from the MDM observatory. Results: The optical photometry clearly displays modulations consistent with those observed in magnetic cataclysmic variables: a low-frequency signal interpreted as the orbital period, a high-frequency signal interpreted as the white dwarf spin period, and an orbital sideband modulation. Our findings and interpretations are further confirmed through optical, time-resolved, spectroscopy that displays H-alpha radial velocity shifts modulated on the binary orbital period. Conclusion: We confirm the true nature of 1RXS J165443.5-191620 as an intermediate polar with a spin period of 546 seconds and an orbital period of 3.7 hours. In particular, 1RXS J165443.5-191620 is part of a growing subset of intermediate polars, all displaying hard X-ray emission above 15keV, white dwarf spin periods below 30 minutes, and spin-to-orbital ratios below 0.1., Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in A&A