14,240 research outputs found
Identification of a high-velocity compact nebular filament 2.2 arcsec south of the Galactic Centre
The central parsec of the Milky Way is a very special region of our Galaxy;
it contains the supermassive black hole associated with Sgr A* as well as a
significant number of early-type stars and a complex structure of streamers of
neutral and ionized gas, within two parsecs from the centre, representing a
unique laboratory. We report the identification of a high velocity compact
nebular filament 2.2 arcsec south of Sgr A*. The structure extends over ~1
arcsec and presents a strong velocity gradient of ~200 km s^{-1} arcsec^{-1}.
The peak of maximum emission, seen in [Fe III] and He I lines, is located at
d{\alpha} = +0.20 +/- 0.06 arcsec and d{\delta} = -2.20 +/- 0.06 arcsec with
respect to Sgr A*. This position is near the star IRS 33N. The velocity at the
emission peak is Vr = -267 km s^{-1}. The filament has a position angle of PA =
115{\degr} +/- 10{\degr}, similar to that of the Bar and of the Eastern Arm at
that position. The peak position is located 0.7 arcsec north of the binary
X-ray and radio transient CXOGX J174540.0-290031, a low-mass X-ray binary with
an orbital period of 7.9 hr. The [Fe III] line emission is strong in the
filament and its vicinity. These lines are probably produced by shock heating
but we cannot exclude some X-ray photoionization from the low-mass X-ray
binary. Although we cannot rule out the idea of a compact nebular jet, we
interpret this filament as a possible shock between the Northern and the
Eastern Arm or between the Northern Arm and the mini-spiral "Bar".Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, published online in MNRA
A hot bubble at the centre of M81
Context. Messier 81 has the nearest active nucleus with broad H
emission. A detailed study of this galaxy's centre is important for
understanding the innermost structure of the AGN phenomenon.
Aims. Our goal is to seek previously undetected structures using additional
techniques to reanalyse a data cube obtained with the GMOS-IFU installed on the
Gemini North telescope (Schnorr M\"uller et al. 2011).
Method. We analysed the data cube using techniques of noise reduction,
spatial deconvolution, starlight subtraction, PCA tomography, and comparison
with HST images.
Results. We identified a hot bubble with T 43500 K that is associated
with strong emission of [N II]5755\AA\ and a high [O
I]6300/H ratio; the bubble displays a bluish continuum,
surrounded by a thin shell of H + [N II] emission. We also reinterpret
the outflow found by Schnorr M\"uller et al. (2011) showing that the
blueshifted cone nearly coincides with the radio jet, as expected.
Conclusions. We interpret the hot bubble as having been caused by post
starburst events that left one or more clusters of young stars, similar to the
ones found at the centre of the Milky Way, such as the Arches and the IRS 16
clusters. Shocked structures from combined young stellar winds or supernova
remnants are probably the cause of this hot gas and the low ionization
emission.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&
NGC 7097: the AGN and its mirror, revealed by PCA Tomography
Three-dimensional (3D) spectroscopy techniques are becoming more and more
popular, producing an increasing number of large data cubes. The challenge of
extracting information from these cubes requires the development of new
techniques for data processing and analysis. We apply the recently developed
technique of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) Tomography to a data cube from
the center of the elliptical galaxy NGC 7097 and show that this technique is
effective in decomposing the data into physically interpretable information. We
find that the first five principal components of our data are associated with
distinct physical characteristics. In particular, we detect a LINER with a weak
broad component in the Balmer lines. Two images of the LINER are present in our
data, one seen through a disk of gas and dust, and the other after scattering
by free electrons and/or dust particles in the ionization cone. Furthermore, we
extract the spectrum of the LINER, decontaminated from stellar and extended
nebular emission, using only the technique of PCA Tomography. We anticipate
that the scattered image has polarized light, due to its scattered nature.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
IFU spectroscopy of 10 early type galactic nuclei: II - Nuclear emission line properties
Although it is well known that massive galaxies have central black holes,
most of them accreting at low Eddington ratios, many important questions still
remain open. Among them, are the nature of the ionizing source, the
characteristics and frequencies of the broad line region and of the dusty
torus. We report observations of 10 early-type galactic nuclei, observed with
the IFU/GMOS spectrograph on the Gemini South telescope, analysed with standard
techniques for spectral treatment and compared with results obtained with
principal component analysis Tomography (Paper I). We performed spectral
synthesis of each spaxel of the data cubes and subtracted the stellar component
from the original cube, leaving a data cube with emission lines only. The
emission lines were decomposed in multi-Gaussian components. We show here that,
for eight galaxies previously known to have emission lines, the narrow line
region can be decomposed in two components with distinct line widths. In
addition to this, broad H emission was detected in six galaxies. The
two galaxies not previously known to have emission lines show weak H+[N
II] lines. All 10 galaxies may be classified as low-ionization nuclear emission
regions in diagnostic diagrams and seven of them have bona fide active galactic
nuclei with luminosities between 10 and 10 erg s.
Eddington ratios are always < 10.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
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