Abstract We investigate the high-ionization, narrow Ne V λ 3427 line emission in a sample of over 340 ultrahard X-ray (14–195 keV) selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) drawn from the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey project. The analysis includes measurements in individual and stacked spectra and considers several key AGN properties such as X-ray luminosity, supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass, Eddington ratios, and line-of-sight column density. The Ne V λ 3427 line is robustly detected in ≈43% (146/341) of the AGN in our sample, with no significant trends between the detection rate and key AGN/SMBH properties. In particular, the detection rate remains high even at the highest levels of obscuration (>70% for log N H / cm − 2 ) ≳ 23 ). On the other hand, even some of our highest signal-to-noise spectra (S/N > 50) lack a robust Ne v detection. The typical (median) scaling ratios between Ne v line emission and (ultra)hard X-ray emission in our sample are log L Ne V / L 14 − 150 keV ≃ − 3.75 and log L Ne V / L 2 − 10 keV ≃ − 3.36 . The scatter on these scaling ratios, ≲0.5 dex, is comparable to, and indeed smaller than, what is found for other commonly used tracers of AGN radiative outputs (e.g., O III λ 5007). Otherwise, we find no significant relations between the (relative) strength of Ne v and the basic AGN/SMBH properties under study, in contrast with simple expectations from models of SMBH accretion flows. Our results reaffirm the usability of Ne v as an AGN tracer even in highly obscured systems, including dual AGN and high-redshift sources.
Reiss et al. (Wed,) studied this question.