An Analytical and Simulations-based Explanation of Observed X-ray Reflection Signatures at kpc Scales Around AGN

The X-ray based literature of Active Galactive Nuclei (AGN) contains countless examples of "reflection" relatively close to the central supermassive black hole, from the accretion disk to the putative torus at ~pc scales. Puzzlingly though, there is also just a handful of observations of telltale features such as the Fe Kα fluorescent emission line consistent with being located at vastly greater, kiloparsec scales. We demonstrate for the first time that relatively simple analytical, physically motivated arguments can lead to robust predictions of these signatures, surprisingly consistent with observations. We further discuss that detailed Monte Carlo simulations of the physics of X-ray reflection are also fully consistent with the analytical estimates, and illustrate with comparisons to Chandra X-ray observations.