Prof. Dimitra Rigopoulou

Abstract:

Abstract We present the first spatially resolved kinematic evidence for dust in the outflows of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). We utilise observations from JWST with NIRSpec IFU and MIRI MRS data of 10 local Seyferts and use Principal Component Analysis (PCA) tomography to extract the kinematics of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) features. PAHs comprise the smallest carbonaceous dust molecules in the Interstellar Medium (ISM), and produce emission features in the infrared providing the potential to measure kinematics. This is however challenging due to their broad shapes and variations in their intrinsic profile, prompting the need for techniques such as PCA tomography. We find that the velocity of the PAHs is similar to the molecular gas as traced by the rotational transitions of H2, where for NGC 5728 and NGC 7582, both disk and outflow are present. We detect the outflow in the kinematics of large and neutral PAHs, namely the 11.3 μm and 17 μm PAH features, where after subtracting the disk, the velocity field matches that of high-ionisation potential lines such as [NeVI] (7.65 μm, IP = 158 eV). Finally, we fail to detect kinematics of the 6.2 μm PAH due to an altered intrinsic profile while the the 3.3 μm PAH kinematics purely trace the circumnuclear disk. This suggests the PAHs in the outflow are more neutral and larger than in star-forming regions, consistent with PAH band ratios in previous studies of AGN.

Abstract:

We present a far-ultraviolet (FUV) analysis of the star-forming complexes (SFCs) in the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 2090 based on observations from the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope, and compare the FUV emission with that from the optical and infrared bands. NGC 2090 exhibits prominent star formation in its extended outer disk, with FUV emission traced out to ∼30 kpc, far beyond the truncation of the old stellar disk at ∼5 kpc. It is classified as an extended UV (XUV) disk galaxy. We identified and characterized the SFCs both within and beyond the optical radius (R 25 ), estimating their physical sizes and star formation rates (SFRs). The outer-disk SFCs are generally smaller in area and show a narrower distribution of SFR surface density (Σ SFR ) compared to the inner-disk SFCs. We investigated the properties of the inner disk using mid-infrared data from the James Webb Space Telescope and find that the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon emission is strongly correlated with regions of active star formation. The specific SFR increases with radius, consistent with a scenario of inside-out disk growth. The observed number of SFCs and their H α -to-FUV flux ratios in the outer disk of NGC 2090 indicate ongoing massive star formation and are consistent with a top-heavy initial mass function (IMF), implying that the upper end of the IMF is not truncated in the low-density, metal-poor outskirts. These results suggest that XUV disks can host significant massive star formation despite their low stellar densities and metallicities.