Title: X-ray spectral properties of seven heavily obscured Seyfert 2 galaxies,
Abstract: We present the combined Chandra and Swift-BAT spectral analysis of seven
Seyfert 2 galaxies selected from the Swift-BAT 100-month catalog. We selected
nearby (z<=0.03) sources lacking of a ROSAT counterpart and never previously
observed with Chandra in the 0.3-10 keV energy range, and targeted these
objects with 10 ks Chandra ACIS-S observations. The X-ray spectral fitting over
the 0.3-150 keV energy range allows us to determine that all the objects are
significantly obscured, having NH>=1E23 cm^(-2) at a >99% confidence level.
Moreover, one to three sources are candidate Compton thick Active Galactic
Nuclei (CT-AGN), i.e., have NH>=1E24 cm^(-2). We also test the recent "spectral
curvature" method developed by Koss et al. (2016) to find candidate CT-AGN,
finding a good agreement between our results and their predictions. Since the
selection criteria we adopted have been effective in detecting highly obscured
AGN, further observations of these and other Seyfert 2 galaxies selected from
the Swift-BAT 100-month catalog will allow us to create a statistically
significant sample of highly obscured AGN, therefore better understanding the
physics of the obscuration processes.