The Dense Plasma Torus Around the Nucleus of an Active Galaxy NGC 1052

A subparsec-scale dense plasma torus around an active galactic nucleus (AGN) is unveiled. We report on very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations at 2.3, 8.4, and 15.4 GHz towards the active galaxy NGC 1052. The convex spectra of the double-sided jets and the nucleus imply that synchrotron emission is obscured through free--free absorption (FFA) by the foreground cold dense plasma. A trichromatic image was produced to illustrate the distribution of the FFA opacity. We found a central condensation of the plasma which covers about 0.1 pc and 0.7 pc of the approaching and receding jets, respectively. A simple explanation for the asymmetric distribution is the existence of a thick plasma torus perpendicular to the jets. We also found an ambient FFA absorber, whose density profile can be ascribed to a spherical distribution of the isothermal King model. The coexistence of torus-like and spherical distributions of the plasma suggests a transition from radial accretion to rotational accretion around the nucleus.Comment: 10 pages, to appear in Publ. Astron. Soc. Japan, vol.53, No.2 (2001

Rotating and infalling motion around the high-mass young stellar object Cepheus A-HW2 observed with the methanol maser at 6.7 GHz

We have measured the internal proper motions of the 6.7 GHz methanol masers associated with Cepheus A (Cep A) HW2 using Very Long Baseline Interferometery (VLBI) observations. We conducted three epochs of VLBI monitoring observations of the 6.7 GHz methanol masers in Cep A-HW2 with the Japanese VLBI Network (JVN) over the period between 2006-2008. In 2006, we were able to use phase-referencing to measure the absolute coordinates of the maser emission with an accuracy of a few milliarcseconds. We compared the maser distribution with other molecular line observations that trace the rotating disk. We measured the internal proper motions for 29 methanol maser spots, of which 19 were identified at all three epochs and the remaining ten at only two epochs. The magnitude of proper motions ranged from 0.2 to 7.4 km/s, with an average of 3.1 km/s. Although there are large uncertainties in the observed internal proper motions of the methanol maser spots in Cep A, they are well fitted by a disk that includes both rotation and infall velocity components. The derived rotation and infall velocities at the disk radius of 680 au are 0.5 +- 0.7 and 1.8 +- 0.7 km/s, respectively. Assuming that the modeled disk motion accurately represents the accretion disk around the Cep A-HW2 high-mass YSO, we estimated the mass infall rate to be 3 x 10^{-4} n_8 Msun/yr (n_8 is the gas volume density in units of 10^{8} cm^{-3}). The combination of the estimated mass infall rate and the magnitude of the fitted infall velocity suggests that Cep A-HW2 is at an evolutionary phase of active gas accretion from the disk onto the central high-mass YSO. The infall momentum rate is estimated to be 5 x 10^{-4} n_8 Msun/yr km/s, which is larger than the estimated stellar radiation pressure of the HW2 object, supporting the hypothesis that this object is in an active gas accretion phase.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

The Size of the Radio-Emitting Region in Low-luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei

We have used the VLA to study radio variability among a sample of 18 low luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGNs), on time scales of a few hours to 10 days. The goal was to measure or limit the sizes of the LLAGN radio-emitting regions, in order to use the size measurements as input to models of the radio emission mechanisms in LLAGNs. We detect variability on typical time scales of a few days, at a confidence level of 99%, in half of the target galaxies. Either variability that is intrinsic to the radio emitting regions, or that is caused by scintillation in the Galactic interstellar medium, is consistent with the data. For either interpretation, the brightness temperature of the emission is below the inverse-Compton limit for all of our LLAGNs, and has a mean value of about 1E10 K. The variability measurements plus VLBI upper limits imply that the typical angular size of the LLAGN radio cores at 8.5 GHz is 0.2 milliarcseconds, plus or minus a factor of two. The ~ 1E10 K brightness temperature strongly suggests that a population of high-energy nonthermal electrons must be present, in addition to a hypothesized thermal population in an accretion flow, in order to produce the observed radio emission.Comment: 61 pages, 17 figures, 10 tables. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa