The Chandra Observations of the Flat Spectrum Source NGC 526A

We report Chandra observations of the Seyfert 1.9 galaxy NGC 526A.The high resolution X-ray image, for the first time, reveals two soft X-ray nuclei in NGC 526A.The direction connecting the two soft nuclei seems to be perpendicular to the central accretion disk and along the jets.The Chandra observations are consistent with the previous X-ray observations that NGC 526A is really a "flat spectrum" source.One of the two best-fit models, which consists of a thermal plasma component and two absorbed power-law components, indicates that the central hard X-ray source must be significantly obscured and the observed spectrum is flatter than any earlier ones. Another model, consisting of two thermal plasma components and a reflection component, is consistent with the new discovery of the double soft X-ray nuclei and also perfectly answers the question why the X-ray spectrum is so flat.Optical polarization observations are needed to tell which model is more reliable.