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# BeppoSAX Observations of Centaurus A : the Hard Continuum and the Iron Line Feature

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Thanks to its proximity (D=3.4 Mpc, Israel 1998) Centaurus A is a well-known radio-loud AGN extensively study from the radio to $`\gamma `$-ray band. At optical wavelengths, it coincides with the giant elliptical galaxy NGC5128, bisected by a prominent dust line. At radio frequencies, it shows a FR I morphology with several emitting features: two giant (250 kpc) outer lobes, a northern middle lobe extending to 30 kpc, two inner lobes and central jets (of 1-5 kpc linear size) and a core (0.01 pc) with associated nuclear jet extending to about 1 pc (Israel 1998 and references therein).

Before the launch of the X-ray satellite Chandra, the X-ray counterparts of the radio nucleus, of the jet and the northern radio lobe have already been revealed, as well as a faint diffuse emission within 6 from the nucleus, probably from hot interstellar medium, and two ridges of thermal emission along each edge of the dust lane, probably associated with Population I binary systems in the disk (Feigelson et al. 1981, Morini et al. 1989, Döbereiner et al. 1996, Turner et al. 1997). With Chandra the X-ray spatial structure has been studied in greater detail. This satellite has shown a nuclear extension of about 5 pc (a few tenths of an arcsecond), an X-ray counter-jet, weak emission from the southern radio lobe and has also detected 63 point-like galactic sources (Kraft et al. 2001a, Kraft et al. 2001b). In particular the jet has been resolved in a diffuse emission extending continuously from 60 pc to 4 kpc and in 31 discrete compact knots, well fitted with absorbed power laws ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }2.02.5`$) (Kraft et al. 2002). Steinle et al. (2000) also reported the discovery of a bright X-ray transient at about 2.5 arcminutes from the nucleus. This source could be an X-ray binary in NGC5128 with a luminosity $`3\times 10^{39}`$ erg sec-1 in the 0.1-2.4 keV band.

Because of the large extinction suffered by the nucleus, the extended components dominate the emission at soft X-ray energies. Above 3 keV the nuclear source becomes dominant. The nuclear spectrum between 3-10 keV has been extensively studied in the past by all the main X-ray satellites. It is generally modeled with a power law heavily absorbed by dense and probably stratified matter ($`N_\mathrm{H}`$$`10^{23}`$ cm-2) and by a fluorescence iron line (Mushotzky et al. 1978, Wang et al. 1986, Morini et al. 1989, Miyazaki et al 1996, Turner et al. 1997, Sugizaki et al. 1997). In contrast with Seyfert galaxies, the iron line of Centaurus A is not associated with a strong Compton reflection (Miyazaki et al. 1996, Wozniak et al. 1998, Rotschild et al. 1999), as one would expect if the line were produced by cold and optically thick gas. This convinced many authors that the Fe feature is produced by the cold dense, but optically thin gas, which is also responsible for the observed photoelectric absorption ($`N_\mathrm{H}`$) surrounding the X-ray source (Miyazaki et al. 1996, Wozniak et al. 1998, Miyazaki et al 1996, Benlloch et al. 2001).

Hard X-ray and soft $`\gamma `$-ray observations performed with the GRO satellite showed a steepening of the power law at high energies. Adopting a power law with an exponential cut-off, the e-folding energy ranged from 300 to 700 keV depending on the brightness state of the source. The high energy spectrum hardened with decreasing intensity (Kinzer et al. 1995). Combining the data from all the GRO instruments, OSSE COMPTEL and EGRET, Steinle et al. (1998) showed that a further steepening of the spectrum occurs between the MeV (COMPTEL) and GeV (EGRET) energies.

Here we present the results of 5 BeppoSAX observations of Centaurus A , two of them simultaneously performed with the COMPTEL instrument on-board the CGRO satellite. Preliminary results concerning the first two pointings were presented by Grandi et al. (1998).

## 2 Observations and Data Analysis

BeppoSAX observed Centaurus A on 5 occasions from 1997 to 2000 (Table 1) and on two occasions operated simultaneously with the COMPTEL instrument on board of CGRO (Table 2).

LECS, MECS and PDS data were reduced following the standard procedures described by Fiore Guainazzi and Grandi (1999; F99). Both the LECS and the MECS spectra were accumulated in circular regions of 4’ radius. Because of a failure in the MECS unit 1 in 1997 May 6, data from all three MECS units were available only for the first observation. Background spectra were extracted from blank fields observations at the same position of the source in the detectors. Since the source is strongly dominated by the background below 0.4 keV, and the response matrix is less reliable above 4 keV, the LECS energy range was restricted to 0.4-4 keV. The PDS net source spectra and light curves were produced by subtracting the off- from the on-source products. The PDS spectra were obtained with the background rejection method based on fixed rise time thresholds. Due to the brightness of the source, we preferred to use the standard PDS reduction procedure to avoid systematic errors in the spectral slopes (F99). Publicly available matrices were used for all the instruments. We binned the LECS, MECS and PDS spectral files proportionally to the instrumental resolution (F99).

The COMPTEL data have been obtained by merging the short observation periods 821, 822, 823, 824, 825, 826 (one week each) into one spectrum. All the COMPTEL observations have been made in a special ”solar mode”. However, this was taken into account in the data reduction and had no influence on the resulting COMPTEL spectral data. The derived intensities (fluxes) are comparable to the values measured with COMPTEL in viewing periods before and after the measurements discussed here.

We used xspec 11 to fit the BeppoSAX data. The parameter uncertainties correspond to $`90\%`$ confidence for two interesting parameters, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=+4.61`$. LECS, MECS and PDS spectra were simultaneously fitted, with the PDS to MECS ratio allowed to vary between 0.83-0.89, while the LECS to MECs ratio was left free, on accounts of possible flux variations and the fact that the LECS and MECS data only partially overlap in time. The significance level of a model was obtained from the $`F`$-test: we assumed that a F probability larger 99.5$`\%`$ implied a significant improvement of the fit. The error bars for the count rates in the figures are 1-$`\sigma `$.

## 3 BeppoSAX Temporal Analysis

Centaurus A was in a relatively low state of brightness during our observations. The observed fluxes, $`F_{312\mathrm{keV}}0.20.3\times 10^9`$ erg cm-2 sec-1, are within the range observed in the last 10 years and lower by a factor $`5`$ than during the outburst in 1974-75 (Turner et al. 1997).

For each observation, time variability in bins of 1000, 5000 and 10000 s was systematically searched for, using the LECS (0.4-4 keV), MECS (1.5-10 keV) and PDS (15-250 keV) light curves. A standard $`\chi ^2`$ test was applied to the average count rate in each energy band. We accepted the source as variable if the probability of being constant was less than $`10^3`$. Fast variability was detected in the 1998 MECS observation, when a drop by $`10\%`$ took place in about 8 hours, as shown in Figure 1 (upper panel). The two MECS spectra, extracted before and after this event, do not display any significant change of form, as demonstrated by their ratio, shown in Figure 1 (lower panel).

When comparing the mean count rate of the five observations (Figure 2), modest flux differences of about 10-25$`\%`$ are present in both the MECS and the PDS, with a $`\chi ^2`$ probability less than $`10^3`$ for the null hypothesis in each of the 1.5-4 keV, 4-10 keV and 15-250 keV light curves. Below $`<1.5`$ keV no significant differences were observed, ($`\chi _\nu ^2=1.27`$, P$`{}_{\chi ^2}{}^{}=0.28`$), as expected, being the soft photons mainly produced in extended regions.

## 4 Spectral Analysis: The average Spectrum

Centaurus A is a source known for its spectral complexity. Several extranuclear components are required to fit the soft spectrum, which BeppoSAX could not resolve. Since our goal is to exploit these data to investigate the hard nuclear component, in our spectral analysis we followed previous investigations to model their contributions. We further combined to start all five observations, in order to achieve the highest signal to noise ratio. This procedure can, in principle, be risky, since the source can change its spectrum from one observation to another. However in our case, the nuclear continuum (above 4 keV) did not significantly vary in shape from one observation to another (as shown a posteriori, but also judged a priori from spectral ratios), allowing us to take advantage of the high quality of the average spectrum up to 250 keV.

### 4.1 Extended Emission and Nuclear Continuum

The average LECS, MECS and PDS spectra have been obtained by combining all the five observations of BeppoSAX . Merging spectra of a source (in particular if extended) needs some precautions. The data of the MECS unit 1, available only in 1997, were not included. To avoid problems due to the different point spread functions111At 1.5 keV the 95$`\%`$ of LECS and MECS count/sec of a point-like source are contained within a region of 5.5 and 3.5 arcminutes, respectively., the MECS data below 3 keV were not considered and the soft extended components were modeled with the LECS alone (0.4-3.0 keV).

The study of the nuclear continuum was initially performed excluding the iron line region (from 5.5 to 7.5 keV). Due to our inability to perform a spatially resolved analysis of the extended emission, we followed the study of Turner et al. (1997) based on ROSAT and ASCA observations. They showed that the soft emission can be fitted with two thermal models and an absorbed power law representative of :

i) a binary disk population ($`kT=5`$ keV, metal abundances 0.4 times solar).

ii) a very soft diffuse thermal ($`kT=0.29_{0.07}^{+0.11}`$ keV, metal abundance 0.4 time solar);

iii) the jet emission ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2.3`$). A recent study of extranuclear components of the jet with Chandra (Kraft et al. 2002) has resolved the jet in several knots well fitted by absorbed power-laws ($`N_\mathrm{H}`$=$`17\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2) with photon indices $``$2.0-2.5, in agreement with ROSAT.

Given the spectral/spatial resolution of BeppoSAX , we considered the Rosat/ASCA parameterization sufficiently accurate for our analysis and focused our attention on the nuclear component. We used the two thermal components and the jet power law for the soft spectrum (only the normalizations of each component could vary) and fitted the continuum with an absorbed power law. The fit was initially unsatisfactory ($`\chi ^2=180`$ for 117 d.o.f.), but we obtained an immediate improvement ($`\chi ^2=142`$ for 117 d.o.f.) when the temperature of the softer component and the column density of the jet were left free to vary. (The fit was insensitive to the temperature of the binary emission which was held fixed). While the soft part of the spectrum appeared now adequately fitted, significant deviations of the residuals remained in the hard part of the spectrum. An excess of emission above 8 keV and a deficit above 80 keV were clearly visible in the MECS and PDS data. We interpreted that as an indication of a possible bending of the spectrum and multiplied the power law by an exponential cut-off. The $`\chi ^2`$ became immediately acceptable ($`\chi ^2`$=125.6 for 116 d.o.f), corresponding to an improvement of $`99.985\%`$. We also looked for a reflection component, which might be due to an optically thick slab of gas and be therefore associated with the iron line. We used the PEXRAV model in XSPEC and fixed the inclination angle of the slab to 65 degrees, an average value deduced from current estimates of the inclination of the jet (Jones et al. 1996; Israel 1998; Tingay 1998). The relative amount of reflection, Ref, turned out to be negligible, namely $`<0.1`$. The fit results are reported in Table 3.

From a purely statistical point of view, another model, namely two power laws absorbed by different values of $`N_\mathrm{H}`$reproduced equally well the spectral curvature in the MECS and PDS. A similar approach was followed by Turner et al (1997) to fit the ASCA data. However, we regard the previous model preferable, not only for its similarity to the most commonly used description in Seyfert galaxies, but also because, as shown in Section 6, in the quasi-simultaneous observations of BeppoSAX and COMPTEL combined, the presence of a high energy break appears unequivocal.

Finally, we briefly comment our results on the extended soft emission. Comparing our fits of the extended soft components with the results of ROSAT (Turner et al. 1997) and Chandra (Kraft 2002) it appears that BeppoSAX data require a slightly higher temperature of the diffuse component (ii) and a larger intrinsic $`N_\mathrm{H}`$(and flux) of the jet (iii). We think that this simply reflects the BeppoSAX spatial limitations in resolving the several components present within a region of 4’. It is possible that we are including more inner (subparsec) jet knots or we are neglecting a un-resolved soft component . For example, if another thermal component (kT$`0.7`$ keV, F$`{}_{0.42.0keV}{}^{}7\times 10^{12}`$ erg cm-2 sec-1) absorbed by Galactic $`N_\mathrm{H}`$is added to the BeppoSAX fit, the nuclear parameters do not change, but both the temperature of the extended component and the $`N_\mathrm{H}`$of the jet are reduced, making the agreement with the previous measurements better. However the $`\chi ^2`$ improvement is modest ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=6`$ for three new parameters) and the F-test probability less than $`95\%`$. The new soft component is not statistically necessary. Although frustrating, this outcome is however useful. It shows that somewhat different parameterizations of the soft emission do not impact on the results concerning the hard nuclear component ($`>4`$ keV). This assures that the simple parameterization of the soft spectrum (i.e. two thermal models and an absorbed power law), adopted in the following, does not affect our conclusions on the high energy part of the spectrum.

### 4.2 The Iron Line Feature

Once the shape of the hard continuum is established, we could study the iron line feature222With the term ”feature” we describe all the Fe photons in the 5.5-7.5 keV band. When we refer to one of the component of the feature, we use the term ”line”. The residuals in the 5.5-7.5 keV region (Figure 3) show a complex feature in emission with an evident blue tail. We note, incidentally, that this asymmetry of the line was also visible in the ASCA data (Figure 6 in Turner et al. 1997), though the hard component had been fitted with a very complex model consisting of three differently absorbed power laws.

In order to better understand the structure of the feature, we fixed all the parameters of the soft components and the hard continuum and fitted the 5.5-7.5 keV excess with a simple gaussian profile. The $`\chi ^2`$ value ($`\chi ^2=162`$ for 144 d.o.f) and an inspection of the residuals showed again an excess around 7 keV. A single cold ($`E=6.50_{0.04}^{+0.05}`$ keV), moderately broad ($`\sigma =0.18_{0.09}^{+0.07}`$ keV) line was not sufficient to model properly the whole profile. Then we tested whether the blue tail was produced by the Fe $`K_\beta `$ fluorescence line and a second gaussian was added to the fit. The energies of the two lines were frozen at 6.4 keV and 7.1 keV and the intrinsic widths were forced to vary together ($`\sigma _{K_\alpha }=\sigma _{K_\beta }`$). Finally the intensities were linked in order to reproduce the intensity ratio of 150 to 17. The $`\chi ^2`$ became worse ($`\chi ^2=169`$ for 145 d.o.f) and the blue tail was still present in the residuals. Only the inclusion of a third gaussian, with all its parameters free, gave a satisfactory modeling of the 7 keV excess and a $`\chi ^2`$ of 150 for 142 d.o.f, with a significant improvement in comparison with the previous cases (P$`{}_{F_{test}}{}^{}>99.6\%`$). Although the $`K_\beta `$ line was not statistically necessary, we kept its contribution linked to the $`K_\alpha `$ line, in order to more correctly evaluate the intensity of the ionized line.

We conclude that, in addition to the $`K_\alpha `$ line, in our observations Centaurus A shows an ionized line in emission. In particular, as displayed by the $`E\sigma `$ confidence levels of the third (hot) component (Figure 4), the state of ionization of the Fe atoms responsible of the blue tail is greater than XX (i.e. $`E>6.5`$ keV) at the 90$`\%`$ confidence level.

The results of our analysis are summarized in Table 3. The data, the residuals and the final model for the 0.4-250 keV spectrum are shown in Figure 5.

### 4.3 BeppoSAX and COMPTEL Simultaneous Observations

The overlapping of the BeppoSAX and Comptel pointings during the summer 1999 offers the unusual opportunity to study the shape of the continuum of emission on more than 4 decades in energies from 0.4 keV to 30 MeV. In Figure 6 the COMPTEL data are plotted together with the two BeppoSAX spectra collected in the summer of 1999. The presence of a high energy break in the Centaurus A spectrum is unequivocal. Incidentally, we note that our results are in agreement with Kinzer et al. 1995, which observed a cutoff at about 500-900 keV with OSSE/GRO when the source was in a state of brightness similar to that of BeppoSAX (F$`{}_{100keV}{}^{}2.2`$ cm-2 sec-1 MeV-1).

## 5 Spectral Variability

### 5.1 The Nuclear Continuum

We initially looked for long-term spectral variability using the softness (SR:1.5-4.0/4.0-10 KeV) and the hardness (HR:15-250/4-10 keV) ratios. As for to the time variability study, a spectral change was accepted when $`P_{\chi ^2}<10^3`$. As shown in Figure 8, the SR increased with the nuclear intensity ($`P_{\chi _{SR}^2}10^6`$), indicating a clear spectral modification below 4 keV. On the contrary, the HR did not meet the variability criteria ($`P_{\chi _{HR}^2}=0.008`$), implying no significant spectral changes of the continuum above 4 keV.

In order to understand the nature of the observed spectral variability, we initially fitted each BeppoSAX observation individually, as we had done for their sum, excluding the region of the iron line. The large number of free parameters, though, prevented us from detecting significant spectral modifications by directly comparing the fit results. Then we decided to adopt a different strategy. We fitted the five observations simultaneously, with all the parameters linked except for the normalization of the cut-offed power law ($`\chi ^2=`$ 689 for 652 degrees of freedom). As the next step, we left the parameters $`N_\mathrm{H}`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`E_{cutoff}`$, one at a time, free to vary from one observation to the other. If, for a given variable, the fit improvement was better than $`99.5\%`$, we concluded that the relaxed parameter had changed during the BeppoSAX monitoring.

In agreement with the HR study, neither the spectral slope ($`\chi ^2=`$ 672 for 647 d.o.f.) nor the high energy cutoff ($`\chi ^2=`$ 679 for 647 d.o.f.) significantly varied from 1997 to 2000 in spite of the continuum flux variations. Conversely, a substantial drop in $`\chi ^2`$ (see Table 4) was obtained as a consequence of, albeit modest, modifications in the column density. In particular the gas appeared thinner when the nucleus luminosity increased (compare the 1998 results with the other epochs). Note that $`N_\mathrm{H}`$modifications have been also found by Benlloch et al. (2001) during a RXTE monitoring of Centaurus A performed from 1996 to 2000. However, although small changes in $`N_\mathrm{H}`$could easily explain the observed Softness Ratio variability (Figure 7), we do not regard this conclusion to be very robust. Flux variations of unresolved soft components could actually mimic changes of the column density along the direct path. For example, if the jet normalization was let free to vary (and $`N_\mathrm{H}`$kept frozen), the fit improvement was, also in this case, larger than 99.5$`\%`$ ($`\chi ^2=`$ 636 for 647 d.o.f.).

### 5.2 Iron Line Variability

The iron line feature changed intensity during the BeppoSAX monitoring. This was immediately clear at the beginning of the monitoring campaign, when the first two observations were compared. Figure 8 shows the ratio between the 1997 and 1998 spectra. It is evident that the ratio is constant across the entire 3-150 keV range apart from the iron line region. The feature was clearly more intense when the source was fainter (in 1997).

We therefore attempted to investigate the behaviour of the cold and of the ionized lines separately, following the same procedure adopted for the nuclear variability. A simultaneous fit of the 5 BeppoSAX observations was performed including also the iron line region. All the parameters of the extended components and the nuclear emission were frozen. To take into account the continuum variability, we choose to fix for each observation the correspondent column density and nuclear flux reported in table 4.

At first, the intensities of the three gaussian were kept frozen to their average values reported in Table 3. The obtained $`\chi ^2`$ is 783 for 760 degrees of freedom. The we relaxed the normalization of the 6.4 keV (to which the $`K_\beta `$ is linked) and the 6.8 keV gaussians. The fit improved with a significance of more than 99.9$`\%`$ (see Table 4), thus confirming the time variability of the feature. These results show that, while the cold line did not significantly change intensity over the whole campaign, the ionized line appears to have been the one responsible for the variations in the feature. In particular, the ionized line was not detected in 1998, when the X-ray source was in the brightest state. Moreover, when the two 1999 observations, performed 23 days apart, are compared, we note that the measured intensity is consistent with a constant value (in fact the largest among the 5 observations), while the continuum strength in the first was only slightly less than in the 1998 observation, and dropped by $`20\%`$ in the second. Thus we conclude that the variations in the ionized line do not seem to correlate with the nuclear luminosity.

## 6 Discussion

The study of Centaurus A is clearly complex. In particular, the soft part of the spectrum ($`<4`$ keV) is rich in components that we could not directly resolve with the imaging capability of BeppoSAX . Our spectral analysis was therefore essentially focused on the study of the medium and hard X-ray spectrum, although the main extranuclear extending components, namely the galactic ridge, the extended soft thermal emission and the kpc jet, were included in our fits.

The results of this paper can be summarized in four points:
i) definition of the hard continuum, i.e. determination of a sharp curvature at $`1`$ MeV and of a stringent upper limit consistent with the absence of a cold reflection component;
ii) discovery of an ionized, in addition to a cold $`K_\alpha `$ iron line;
iii) detection of iron line variability, due mainly to changes in the ionized component, which do not appear to correlate with those in the strength of the nuclear continuum;
iv) detection of spectral variations below 4 keV.

The nature of the nuclear emission in Centaurus A is still unclear and strongly debated. Chiaberge Capetti $`\&`$ Celotti (2001) noted that the Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) of the nucleus is very similar to that of Blazars, showing two broad peaks, located in the far-infrared band and at about 100 keV. They fitted the Centaurus A SED with a Synchrotron Self Compton Model and found a beaming factor $`\delta =[\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\beta cos\theta )]^11`$ which, with $`cos\theta 0.4`$, turned out to be incompatible with being originated in a misoriented jet (assuming bulk Lorentz factors $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1520`$, as estimated in BL Lacs). The idea suggested by the authors is that there is a distribution in the bulk velocity of the jet with a slower external layer surrounding a highly relativistic inner flow. The SED of Centaurus A (and more in general of FRI galaxies, Chiaberge et al. 2000) should be dominated by the slower plasma emission. The Fe lines observed by BeppoSAX could be produced by interaction between external jet X-ray photons and surrounding neutral/ionized gas. A very wide opening angle for the non-thermal plasma ejected by the nucleus is then required to explain the prominent feature in emission.

An alternative interpretation of the SED is that the main source of medium-hard X-ray photons is an (isotropically emitting) accretion flow. The high energy spectral curvature observed by BeppoSAX and COMPTEL could be simply due to up-scattering of soft photons by thermal ($`E_{cutoff}kT`$) electrons in an accretion flow. Incidentally, we note that Verdoes Kleijn et al. (2002), on the basis of nuclear radio and optical observations of a sample of 21 FRI nearby radio galaxies, have drawn similar conclusions. In order to explain the tight correlation between radio, optical and (isotropic) H$`alpha`$+\[N II\] core emission, they suggested the possible presence of an accretion flow in addition to a jet.

If an accretion flow dominates the X-ray continuum of Centaurus A , it is not probably in the shape of the standard cold thin optically thick disk (SS; Shakura & Sunyaev 1973) with a hot corona above it (Haardt $`\&`$ Maraschi 1991, 1993; Poutanen $`\&`$ Swenson 1996). The lack of a significant reflection component as well as the presence of a narrow $`K_\alpha `$ line weakens this possibility. As inferred from the 6.4 keV gaussian profile, the neutral gas is tens of light-days distant from the black hole. Assuming a black hole mass of $`M=2\times 10^8M_{}`$ (Marconi et al. 2001), the upper limit $`\sigma _{6.4keV}=0.13`$ keV of the $`K_\alpha `$ width (Table 3) implies indeed a distance of the neutral zone larger than $`R_{6.4keV}>1.4\times 10^{17}`$ cm ($`>0.05`$ pc). The large uncertainties associated with the 6.8 keV gaussian parameters prevent us from excluding that an ionized disk extends up to a few Schwarzschild radii (R$`{}_{s}{}^{}=2GM/c^26\times 10^{13}`$) from the black hole. Considering the low accretion rate of Centaurus A $`\dot{m}10^3\dot{m}_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$ (as deduced by the SED reported by Chiaberge et al. 2001, assuming a central mass of $`M=2\times 10^8M_{}`$), this is however improbable. The ionization of the upper layers of a SS disk strongly depends on the accretion rate (Ross and Fabian 1993). As shown by the accurate models of Nayakshin and Kallman (2001), for such a modest value of $`\dot{m}`$ the disk should be neutral for a wide range of illumination conditions (i.e. corona geometries). In addition, the iron line variability does not support the idea that the reprocessing material is in proximity of the X-ray primary source. The lack of correlation between the nuclear luminosity and the ionized line suggests a a temporal delay and therefore a spatial separation between the X-ray source and the gas.

Incidentally we note that the 6.8 keV variability could be explained without invoking a temporal delay. If the contributions of the nuclear thermal and non-thermal radiation are comparable, then the variability of the X-ray continuum could be the result of random and un-related changes of the jet and the accretion flow. For example, a very faint accretion flow (responsible for the Fe line production) and a very bright jet could easily account for the weaker Fe feature and the intense X-ray continuum observed in 1998. Although interesting, this interpretation is not convincing. It is difficult to justify the lack of significant spectral modifications (slope and energy cutoff) of the continuum on time scale of years if intense and sometimes opposite changes of the luminosity of its components occurred from one observation to another.

In any case, the observation of a iron feature which does not promptly respond to the X-ray source variations is not a surprising result. Studies of X-ray bright radio galaxies with BeppoSAX and RXTE have shown a general weakness of the iron line and the reflection (Eracleous et al. 2000, Zdziarski and Grandi 2001, Grandi et al. 2001). One possible explanation is that the covering factor of the reprocessing gas is small, since the SS cold disk switches to a hot thick optically thin accretion flow in its inner region (Shapiro Lightman and Eardley (1976), Narayan $`\&`$ Yi 1995). If this is the case, a temporal delay between line (produced from the disk) and continuum (emitted form the hot flow) is expected. In Centaurus A , characterized by a low radiative efficiency, the inner regions could be occupied by an Advection Dominated Accretion Flow, i.e. very hot thin plasma which, unable to cool efficiently, advects most of its thermal energy into the central black hole.

Finally, we note that the spectral variability study (Table 4) indicates a larger column density when the Fe feature was intense (and the nucleus less luminous). If the same gas which absorbs the nuclear continuum also produces the lines, then the drastic reduction of Fe photons when the nucleus was brighter could imply a larger transparency of the medium. Although intriguing, a correlation between $`N_\mathrm{H}`$and Fe intensity changes is unlikely for several reasons. The variations ($`1520\%`$) of the nucleus luminosity are too modest to signifcatively alter the state of ionization of the gas. In addition, Benlloch et al. 2001, on the base of RXTE data, showed that the $`N_\mathrm{H}`$variations, observed in three distinct pointings, are correlated neither with the continuum flux nor with the iron line. Finally, the column density decrease could be not real, but mimicked by the flux increase of unknown (and unresolved) soft components, like, for example, jet knots, variable stars within the BeppoSAX field and/or radiation scattered into our line of sight.