The Galaxy Activity, Torus, and Outflow Survey (GATOS). III. Revealing the inner icy structure in local active galactic nuclei

We use JWST/MIRI MRS spectroscopy of a sample of six local obscured type 1.9/2 active galactic nuclei (AGN) to compare their nuclear mid-IR absorption bands with the level of nuclear obscuration traced by X-rays. This study is the first to use subarcsecond angular resolution data of local obscured A...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: García Bernete, I., Alonso Herrero, A., Rigopoulou, D., Pereira Santaella, M., Shimizu, T., Davies, R., Donnan, F.R., Roche, P.F., González-Martín , O., Ramos Almeida, C., Bellocchi, E., Boorman, P., Combes, F., Efstathiou, A., Esparza Arredondo, D., García Burillo, S., González Alfonso, Eduardo|||0000-0001-5285-8517, Hicks, E.K.S., Hönig, S., Labiano, A., Levenson, N.A., López Rodríguez, E., Ricci, C., Packham, C., Rouan, D., Stalevski, M., Ward, M.J.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2024
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)
Repositorio:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/67619
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10017/67619
https://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202348266
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Techniques: high angular resolution
Techniques: spectroscopic
Galaxies: nuclei
Galaxies: Seyfert
Infrared: galaxies
Astronomía
Astronomy
Descripción
Sumario:We use JWST/MIRI MRS spectroscopy of a sample of six local obscured type 1.9/2 active galactic nuclei (AGN) to compare their nuclear mid-IR absorption bands with the level of nuclear obscuration traced by X-rays. This study is the first to use subarcsecond angular resolution data of local obscured AGN to investigate the nuclear mid-IR absorption bands with a wide wavelength coverage (4.9?28.1 m). All the nuclei show the 9.7 m silicate band in absorption. We compare the strength of the 9.7 and 18 m silicate features with torus model predictions. The observed silicate features are generally well explained by clumpy and smooth torus models. We report the detection of the 6 m dirty water ice band (i.e., a mix of water and other molecules such as CO and CO2) at subarcsecond scales ( 0.2600 at 6 m; inner 50 pc) in a sample of local AGN with di erent levels of nuclear obscuration in the range log NX-Ray H (cm�2) 22�25. We find good correlation between the 6 m water ice optical depths and NX-Ray H . This result indicates that the water ice absorption might be a reliable tracer of the nuclear intrinsic obscuration in AGN. The weak water ice absorption in less obscured AGN (log NX-ray H (cm�2) . 23:0 cm�2) might be related to the hotter dust temperature (>TH2O sub 110 K) expected to be reached in the outer layers of the torus due to their more inhomogeneous medium. Our results suggest it might be necessary to include the molecular content, such as H2O, aliphatic hydrocarbons (CH�), and more complex polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) molecules, in torus models to better constrain key parameters such as the torus covering factor (i.e., nuclear obscuration).

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