Examinando por Autor "Levenson, N. A."

Mostrando 1 - 4 de 4

Acceso Abierto
ALMA Polarimetry Measures Magnetically Aligned Dust Grains in the Torus of NGC 1068
(The Institute of Physics (IOP), 2020-04-14) López Rodríguez, E.; Alonso Herrero, A.; García Burillo, S.; Gordon, M. S.; Ichikawa, K.; Imanishi, M.; Kameno, S.; Levenson, N. A.; Nikutta, R.; Packham, C.; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI); 0000-0001-5357-6538; 0000-0002-1913-2682; 0000-0002-4377-903X; 0000-0001-6186-8792; 0000-0002-5158-0063; Unidad de Excelencia Científica María de Maeztu Centro de Astrobiología del Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial y CSIC, MDM-2017-0737
The obscuring structure surrounding active galactic nuclei (AGN) can be explained as a dust and gas flow cycle that fundamentally connects the AGN with their host galaxies. This structure is believed to be associated with dusty winds driven by radiation pressure. However, the role of magnetic fields, which are invoked in almost all models for accretion onto a supermassive black hole and outflows, has not been thoroughly studied. Here we report the first detection of polarized thermal emission by means of magnetically aligned dust grains in the dusty torus of NGC 1068 using ALMA Cycle 4 polarimetric dust continuum observations (007, 4.2 pc; 348.5 GHz, 860 mu m). The polarized torus has an asymmetric variation across the equatorial axis with a peak polarization of 3.7% 0.5% and position angle of 109 degrees 2 degrees (B-vector) at similar to 8 pc east from the core. We compute synthetic polarimetric observations of magnetically aligned dust grains assuming a toroidal magnetic field and homogeneous grain alignment. We conclude that the measured 860 mu m continuum polarization arises from magnetically aligned dust grains in an optically thin region of the torus. The asymmetric polarization across the equatorial axis of the torus arises from (1) an inhomogeneous optical depth and (2) a variation of the velocity dispersion, i.e., a variation of the magnetic field turbulence at subparsec scales, from the eastern to the western region of the torus. These observations and modeling constrain the torus properties beyond spectral energy distribution results. This study strongly supports that magnetic fields up to a few parsecs contribute to the accretion flow onto the active nuclei.
Acceso Abierto
Cold molecular gas and PAH emission in the nuclear and circumnuclear regions of Seyfert galaxies
(EDP Sciences, 2020-07-07) Alonso Herrero, A.; Pereira Santaella, M.; Rigopoulou, D.; García Bernete, I.; García Burillo, S.; Domínguez Fernández, A. J.; Combes, F.; Davies, R. I.; Díaz Santos, T.; Esparza Borges, E.; González Martín, O.; Hernán Caballero, A.; Hicks, E. K. S.; Hönig, S. F.; Levenson, N. A.; Ramos Almeida, C.; Roche, P. F.; Rosario, D.; Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI); Comunidad de Madrid; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC); Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM); European Research Council (ERC); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); 0000-0001-8353-649X; 0000-0003-0699-6083; 0000-0002-0001-3587; 0000-0002-8524-8413; 0000-0003-4949-7217; 0000-0002-6353-1111
We investigate the relation between the detection of the 11.3 mu m polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) feature in the nuclear (similar to 24-230 pc) regions of 22 nearby Seyfert galaxies and the properties of the cold molecular gas. For the former we use ground-based (0.3-0.6 '' resolution) mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectroscopy. The cold molecular gas is traced by ALMA and NOEMA high (0.2-1.1 '') angular resolution observations of the CO(2-1) transition. Galaxies with a nuclear detection of the 11.3 mu m PAH feature contain more cold molecular gas (median 1.6x10(7) M-circle dot) and have higher column densities (N(H-2) = 2x10(23) cm(-2)) over the regions sampled by the mid-IR slits than those without a detection. This suggests that molecular gas plays a role in shielding the PAH molecules in the harsh environments of Seyfert nuclei. Choosing the PAH molecule naphthalene as an illustration, we compute its half-life in the nuclear regions of our sample when exposed to 2.5 keV hard X-ray photons. We estimate shorter half-lives for naphthalene in nuclei without a 11.3 mu m PAH detection than in those with a detection. The Spitzer/IRS PAH ratios on circumnuclear scales (similar to 4 ''similar to 0.25-1.3 kpc) are in between model predictions for neutral and partly ionized PAHs. However, Seyfert galaxies in our sample with the highest nuclear H-2 column densities are not generally closer to the neutral PAH tracks. This is because in the majority of our sample galaxies, the CO(2-1) emission in the inner similar to 4 '' is not centrally peaked and in some galaxies traces circumnuclear sites of strong star formation activity. Spatially resolved observations with the MIRI medium-resolution spectrograph on the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to distinguish the effects of an active galactic nucleus (AGN) and star formation on the PAH emission in nearby AGN.
Acceso Abierto
Searching for molecular gas inflows and outflows in the nuclear regions of five Seyfert galaxies.
(EDP Sciences, 2020-11-13) Domínguez Fernández, A. J.; Alonso Herrero, A.; García Burillo, S.; Davies, R. I.; Usero, A.; Labiano, Á.; Levenson, N. A.; Pereira Santaella, M.; Imanishi, M.; Ramos Almeida, C.; Rigopoulou, D.; Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI); Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO); Comunidad de Madrid; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC); Ramos Almeida, C. [https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8353-649X]; Davies, R. [https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4949-7217]; Alonso Herrero, A. [https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6794-2519]; Unidad de Excelencia Científica María de Maeztu Centro de Astrobiología del Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial y CSIC, MDM-2017-0737
Active galactic nucleus (AGN) driven outflows are believed to play an important role in regulating the growth of galaxies, mostly via negative feedback. However, their effects on their hosts are far from clear, especially for low- and moderate-luminosity Seyferts. To investigate this issue, we obtained cold molecular gas observations, traced by the CO(2-1) transition, using the NOEMA interferometer of five nearby (distances between 19 and 58 Mpc) Seyfert galaxies. The resolution of ∼0.3–0.8 (∼30–100 pc) and field of view of NOEMA allowed us to study the CO(2-1) morphology and kinematics in the nuclear regions (∼100 pc) and up to radial distances of ∼900 pc. We detected CO(2-1) emission in all five galaxies with disky or circumnuclear ring-like morphologies. We derived cold molecular gas masses on nuclear (∼100 pc) and circumnuclear (∼650 pc) scales in the range from 106 to 107 M⊙ and from 107 to 108 M⊙, respectively. In all of our galaxies, the bulk of this gas is rotating in the plane of the galaxy. However, noncircular motions are also present. In NGC 4253, NGC 4388, and NGC 7465, we can ascribe the streaming motions to the presence of a large-scale bar. In Mrk 1066 and NGC 4388, the noncircular motions in the nuclear regions are explained as outflowing material due to the interaction of the AGN wind with molecular gas in the galaxy disk. We conclude that for an unambiguous and precise interpretation of the kinematics of the cold molecular gas, we need detailed knowledge of the host galaxy (i.e., presence of bars, interactions, etc.), and also of the ionized gas kinematics and ionization cone geometry.
Acceso Abierto
Torus model properties of an ultra-hard X-ray selected sample of Seyfert galaxies
(Oxford Academics: Oxford University Press, 2019-04-10) García Bernete, I.; Ramos Almeida, C.; Alonso Herrero, A.; Ward, M. J.; Acosta Pulido, J. A.; Pereira Santaella, M.; Hernán Caballero, A.; Asensio Ramos, A.; González Martín, O.; Levenson, N. A.; Mateos, S.; Carrera, F. J.; Ricci, C.; Roche, P. F.; Márquez, I.; Packham, C.; Masegosa, J.; Fuller, L.; Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI); Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC); Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO); Unidad de Excelencia Científica María de Maeztu Centro de Astrobiología del Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial y CSIC, MDM-2017-0737
We characterize for the first time the torus properties of an ultra-hard X-ray (14–195 keV) volume-limited (DL < 40 Mpc) sample of 24 Seyfert (Sy) galaxies (BCS40 sample). The sample was selected from the Swift/BAT nine-month catalogue. We use high angular resolution nuclear infrared (IR) photometry and N-band spectroscopy, the CLUMPY torus models and a Bayesian tool to characterize the properties of the nuclear dust. In the case of the Sy1s, we estimate the accretion disc contribution to the subarcsecond resolution nuclear IR SEDs (∼0.4 arcsec) which is, on average, 46 ± 28, 23 ± 13, and 11 ± 5 per cent in the J, H, and K bands, respectively. This indicates that the accretion disc templates that assume a steep fall for longer wavelengths than 1 μm might underestimate its contribution to the near-IR emission. Using both optical (broad versus narrow lines) and X-ray (unabsorbed versus absorbed) classifications, we compare the global posterior distribution of the torus model parameters. We confirm that Sy2s have larger values of the torus covering factor (CT ∼ 0.95) than Sy1s (CT ∼ 0.65) in our volume-limited Seyfert sample. These findings are independent of whether we use an optical or X-ray classification. We find that the torus covering factor remains essentially constant within the errors in our luminosity range and there is no clear dependence with the Eddington ratio. Finally, we find tentative evidence that even an ultra-hard X-ray selection is missing a significant fraction of highly absorbed type 2 sources with very high covering factor tori.