#AthenaNuggets: Unveiling the Nature of the Mysterious Soft X-ray Excess in Active Galactic Nuclei

Active Galactic Nuclei are known to be strong X-ray emitters. Most of the sources present a soft X-ray component between 1-2 keV, whose origin is unknown after fifty years of its finding. It is important to understand the nature of this soft X-ray excess because it could be a fundamental piece to understand how matter accretes onto black holes.

Athena will discriminate among models in a wide sample of sources, being able to solve this issue as described by Francesco Ursini, Giorgio Matt, and Pierre-Olivier Petrucci in #Athenanuggets 55.