The effect of galaxy mergers on the obscuration of AGNs

Various observational evidences suggest that the obscuration of AGNs increasesin the presence of nonaxisimmetric potentials, due to the capability of thelatter to drive gas into the nuclear region. In particular, Seyfert 2s hostedin barred galaxies are generally Compton thick. We propose to extend this studyto tightly interacting/merging Seyfert 2 galaxies by observing a sample of thisclass of objects with XMM. We expect interacting/merging Seyfert 2s to be onaverage obscured by a much larger column of gas than isolated, dynamicallyrelaxed Seyfert 2s. Since galaxy interactions are more frequent at higherredshift, this study would have important implications on the origin of the(hard) Xray background. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]