AGN-Host Interaction in IC 5063. I. Large-scale X-Ray Morphology and Spectral Analysis

We report the analysis of the deep (∼270 ks) X-ray Chandra data of one of the most radio-loud, Seyfert 2 galaxies in the nearby universe (z = 0.01135), IC 5063. The alignment of the radio structure with the galactic disk and ionized bicone, enables us to study the effects of both radio jet and nuclear irradiation on the interstellar medium (ISM). The nuclear and bicone spectra suggest a low photoionization phase mixed with a more ionized or thermal gas component, while the cross-cone spectrum is dominated by shocked and collisionally ionized gas emission. The clumpy morphology of the soft (<3 keV) X-ray emission along the jet trails, and the large (≃2.4 kpc) filamentary structure perpendicular to the radio jets at softer energies (<1.5 keV), suggest a large contribution of the jet-ISM interaction to the circumnuclear gas emission. The hard X-ray continuum (>3 keV) and the Fe Kα 6.4 keV emission are both extended to kpc size along the bicone direction, suggesting an interaction of nuclear photons with dense clouds in the galaxy disk, as observed in other Compton Thick (CT) active nuclei. The northwest cone spectrum also exhibits an Fe xxv emission line, which appears spatially extended and spatially correlated with the most intense radio hot-spot, suggesting jet-ISM interaction.