Studying the tori of Polar-scattered Seyfert 1 galaxies in the X-ray

The unification model of active galactic nuclei requires the presence of a dusty circum-nuclear structure, commonly referred to as the ‘torus’. The orientation of this torus with respect to the line of sight determines if the region between the accretion disk and the torus, where the optical broad lines are produced, is obscured. This torus was believed to be a smooth toroidal structure. However, recent developments have suggested the idea of a non-uniform “clumpy” torus in order to explain the observations, inconsistent with a smooth torus. Despite its important role in black hole accretion and AGN ‘feedback', the torus is not well-understood or studied. Even though the number of torus studies have increased in recent years, they have been targeting the highly-obscured Seyfert 2 tori, a similar study of the less-obscured Seyfert 1 tori is needed to complete the picture. We will present results from such a study. Our study targets the so-called polar-scattered Seyfert 1 galaxies, which are ideal sources as the line of sight passes only through the edge of their torus causing minimal obscuration but allowing a study of the torus properties. Our study investigates the torus structure of all twelve, known polar-scattered Seyferts using archival X-ray spectra. The, often multi-epoch, archival data are analyzed using a self-consistent physical torus model. We then compare our results to what has been found for Seyfert 2 tori.