368 research outputs found
Disentangling the circumnuclear environs of Centaurus A: II. On the nature of the broad absorption line
We report on atomic gas (HI) and molecular gas (as traced by CO(2-1))
redshifted absorption features toward the nuclear regions of the closest
powerful radio galaxy, Centaurus A (NGC 5128). Our HI observations using the
Very Long Baseline Array allow us to discern with unprecedented sub-parsec
resolution HI absorption profiles toward different positions along the 21 cm
continuum jet emission in the inner 0."3 (or 5.4 pc). In addition, our CO(2-1)
data obtained with the Submillimeter Array probe the bulk of the absorbing
molecular gas with little contamination by emission, not possible with previous
CO single-dish observations. We shed light with these data on the physical
properties of the gas in the line of sight, emphasizing the still open debate
about the nature of the gas that produces the broad absorption line (~55 km/s).
First, the broad H I line is more prominent toward the central and brightest 21
cm continuum component than toward a region along the jet at a distance ~ 20
mas (or 0.4 pc) further from it. This suggests that the broad absorption line
arises from gas located close to the nucleus, rather than from diffuse and more
distant gas. Second, the different velocity components detected in the CO(2-1)
absorption spectrum match well other molecular lines, such as those of
HCO+(1-0), except the broad absorption line that is detected in HCO+(1-0) (and
most likely related to that of the H I). Dissociation of molecular hydrogen due
to the AGN seems to be efficient at distances <= 10 pc, which might contribute
to the depth of the broad H I and molecular lines.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
ALLSMOG: an APEX Low-redshift Legacy Survey for MOlecular Gas. I - molecular gas scaling relations, and the effect of the CO/H2 conversion factor
We present ALLSMOG, the APEX Low-redshift Legacy Survey for MOlecular Gas.
ALLSMOG is a survey designed to observe the CO(2-1) emission line with the APEX
telescope, in a sample of local galaxies (0.01 < z < 0.03), with stellar masses
in the range 8.5 < log(M*/Msun) < 10. This paper is a data release and initial
analysis of the first two semesters of observations, consisting of 42 galaxies
observed in CO(2-1). By combining these new CO(2-1) emission line data with
archival HI data and SDSS optical spectroscopy, we compile a sample of low-mass
galaxies with well defined molecular gas masses, atomic gas masses, and
gas-phase metallicities. We explore scaling relations of gas fraction and gas
consumption timescale, and test the extent to which our findings are dependent
on a varying CO/H2 conversion factor. We find an increase in the H2/HI mass
ratio with stellar mass which closely matches semi-analytic predictions. We
find a mean molecular gas fraction for ALLSMOG galaxies of MH2/M* = (0.09 -
0.13), which decreases with stellar mass. We measure a mean molecular gas
consumption timescale for ALLSMOG galaxies of 0.4 - 0.7 Gyr. We also confirm
the non-universality of the molecular gas consumption timescale, which varies
(with stellar mass) from ~100 Myr to ~2 Gyr. Importantly, we find that the
trends in the H2/HI mass ratio, gas fraction, and the non-universal molecular
gas consumption timescale are all robust to a range of recent
metallicity-dependent CO/H2 conversion factors.Comment: 25 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA
10 pc Scale Circumnuclear Molecular Gas Imaging of Nearby AGNs
We present the images and kinematics of circumnuclear molecular gas from 100
pc scale down to 10 pc scale in nearby active galactic nuclei (AGNs) using the
Submillimeter Array (SMA) and the Plateau de Bure Interferometer (PdBI). We
have observed several nearby galaxies that host AGNs, such as the nearest radio
galaxy Centaurus A (NGC 5128), the Seyfert 2 galaxy M51 (NGC 5194), the Seyfert
2 galaxy NGC 1068, the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 1097, and the Seyfert 2 / starburst
composite galaxy NGC 4945, in CO lines to see whether the molecular gas
distribution, kinematics, and physical conditions at 10 - 100 pc scale follows
the AGN unified model or not. In 100 pc scale, most of the circumnuclear
molecular gas shows smooth velocity gradient, suggesting a regular rotating
feature, and also shows abnormal line ratios, suggesting the existence of
active sources to make the circumnuclear molecular gas dense and/or warm
conditions or abnormal chemical compositions. In 10 pc scale, on the other
hand, the molecular gas kinematics shows various characteristics, some shows
very disturbed kinematics such as a jet-entrained feature in the galaxies that
have jets, but some still shows regular rotation feature in a galaxy that does
not have obvious jets. These results indicate that the kinematics and
physical/chemical conditions of the circumnuclear molecular gas at the scale
less than 100 pc is highly affected by the AGN activities, and at this scale,
there is no clear evidence of any unified feature seen in the circumnuclear
molecular gas.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures; Proceedings of "the Central Kiloparsec in
Galactic Nuclei - Astronomy at High Angular Resolution 2011," to be appear in
Journal of Physics: Conference Series (IOP Publishing
Uncovering the kiloparsec-scale stellar ring of NGC5128
We reveal the stellar light emerging from the kiloparsec-scale, ring-like
structure of the NGC5128 (Centaurus A) galaxy in unprecedented detail. We use
arcsecond-scale resolution near infrared images to create a "dust-free" view of
the central region of the galaxy, which we then use to quantify the shape of
the revealed structure. At the resolution of the data, the structure contains
several hundreds of discreet, point-like or slightly elongated sources. Typical
extinction corrected surface brightness of the structure is K_S = 16.5
mag/arcsec^2, and we estimate the total near infrared luminosity of the
structure to be M = -21 mag. We use diffraction limited (FWHM resolution of ~
0.1", or 1.6 pc) near infrared data taken with the NACO instrument on VLT to
show that the structure decomposes into thousands of separate, mostly
point-like sources. According to the tentative photometry, the most luminous
sources have M_K = -12 mag, naming them red supergiants or relatively low-mass
star clusters. We also discuss the large-scale geometry implied by the
reddening signatures of dust in our near infrared images.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&A Letters. A
version with high resolution images can be downloaded from
http://www.helsinki.fi/~jtkainul/CenALette
ALMA twenty-six arcmin2 survey of GOODS-S at one millimeter (ASAGAO): Millimeter properties of stellar mass selected galaxies
We make use of the ASAGAO, deep 1.2 mm continuum observations of a 26
arcmin region in the GOODS-South field obtained with ALMA, to probe
dust-enshrouded star formation in -band selected (i.e., stellar mass
selected) galaxies, which are drawn from the ZFOURGE catalog. Based on the
ASAGAO combined map, which was created by combining ASAGAO and ALMA archival
data in the GOODS-South field, we find that 24 ZFOURGE sources have 1.2 mm
counterparts with a signal-to-noise ratio 4.5 (1 30 - 70
Jy beam at 1.2 mm). Their median redshift is estimated to be
2.38 0.14. They generally follow the tight
relationship of the stellar mass versus star formation rate (i.e., the main
sequence of star-forming galaxies). ALMA-detected ZFOURGE sources exhibit
systematically larger infrared (IR) excess (IRX ) compared to ZFOURGE galaxies without ALMA
detections even though they have similar redshifts, stellar masses, and star
formation rates. This implies the consensus stellar-mass versus IRX relation,
which is known to be tight among rest-frame-UV-selected galaxies, can not fully
predict the ALMA detectability of stellar-mass-selected galaxies. We find that
ALMA-detected ZFOURGE sources are the main contributors to the cosmic IR star
formation rate density at = 2 - 3.Comment: Accepted for publication in PASJ. A version with a high resolution
figure and ALMA fits files are available from
https://sites.google.com/view/asagao26
ALMA Long Baseline Observations of the Strongly Lensed Submillimeter Galaxy HATLAS J090311.6+003906 at z=3.042
We present initial results of very high resolution Atacama Large
Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of the =3.042
gravitationally lensed galaxy HATLAS J090311.6+003906 (SDP.81). These
observations were carried out using a very extended configuration as part of
Science Verification for the 2014 ALMA Long Baseline Campaign, with baselines
of up to 15 km. We present continuum imaging at 151, 236 and 290 GHz, at
unprecedented angular resolutions as fine as 23 milliarcseconds (mas),
corresponding to an un-magnified spatial scale of ~180 pc at z=3.042. The ALMA
images clearly show two main gravitational arc components of an Einstein ring,
with emission tracing a radius of ~1.5". We also present imaging of CO(10-9),
CO(8-7), CO(5-4) and H2O line emission. The CO emission, at an angular
resolution of ~170 mas, is found to broadly trace the gravitational arc
structures but with differing morphologies between the CO transitions and
compared to the dust continuum. Our detection of H2O line emission, using only
the shortest baselines, provides the most resolved detection to date of thermal
H2O emission in an extragalactic source. The ALMA continuum and spectral line
fluxes are consistent with previous Plateau de Bure Interferometer and
Submillimeter Array observations despite the impressive increase in angular
resolution. Finally, we detect weak unresolved continuum emission from a
position that is spatially coincident with the center of the lens, with a
spectral index that is consistent with emission from the core of the foreground
lensing galaxy.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures and 3 tables, accepted for publication in the
Astrophysical Journal Letter
The final data release of ALLSMOG: a survey of CO in typical local low-M* star-forming galaxies
We present the final data release of the APEX low-redshift legacy survey for molecular gas (ALLSMOG), comprising CO(2-1) emission line observations of 88 nearby, low-mass (10^8.5<M* [M_Sun]<10^10) star-forming galaxies carried out with the 230 GHz APEX-1 receiver on the APEX telescope. The main goal of ALLSMOG is to probe the molecular gas content of more typical and lower stellar mass galaxies than have been studied by previous CO surveys. We also present IRAM 30m observations of the CO(1-0) and CO(2-1) emission lines in nine galaxies aimed at increasing the M*<10^9 M_Sun sample size. In this paper we describe the observations, data reduction and analysis methods and we present the final CO spectra together with archival HI 21cm line observations for the entire sample of 97 galaxies. At the sensitivity limit of ALLSMOG, we register a total CO detection rate of 47%. Galaxies with higher M*, SFR, nebular extinction (A_V), gas-phase metallicity (O/H), and HI gas mass have systematically higher CO detection rates. In particular, the parameter according to which CO detections and non-detections show the strongest statistical differences is the gas-phase metallicity, for any of the five metallicity calibrations examined in this work. We investigate scaling relations between the CO(1-0) line luminosity and galaxy-averaged properties using ALLSMOG and a sub-sample of COLD GASS for a total of 185 sources that probe the local main sequence (MS) of star-forming galaxies and its +-0.3 dex intrinsic scatter from M* = 10^8.5 M_Sun to M* = 10^11 M_Sun. L'_{CO(1-0)} is most strongly correlated with the SFR, but the correlation with M* is closer to linear and almost comparably tight. The relation between L'_{CO(1-0)} and metallicity is the steepest one, although deeper CO observations of galaxies with A_V<0.5 mag may reveal an as much steep correlation with A_V. [abridged
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