Search

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are carbon-based molecules resulting from the union of aromatic rings and related species, which are likely responsible for strong infrared emission features (3.3, 6.2, 7.7, 8.6, 11.3 and 12.7 microns). In this work, using a sample of 50 Seyfert galaxies (DL300-400) as well as neutral species. By subtracting the spectrum of the central source from the total, we compare the PAH emission in the central vs extended region of a small sample of AGN. In contrast to the findings for the central regions of AGN-dominated systems, the PAH ratios measured in the extended regions of both type 1 and type 2 Seyfert galaxies can be explained assuming similar PAH molecular size distribution and ionized fractions of molecules to those seen in central regions of star-forming galaxies (100, Comment: 29 pages, 21 figures, 6 tables, MNRAS, accepted 2021 October 22

Recent infrared interferometric observations revealed sub-parsec scale dust distributions around active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Using images of CLUMPY torus models and NGC 1068 as an example, we demonstrate that the near- and mid-infrared nuclear emission of some nearby AGNs will be resolvable in direct imaging with the next generation of 30~m telescopes, potentially breaking degeneracies from previous studies that used integrated spectral energy distributions of unresolved AGN tori. To that effect we model wavelength-dependent point spread functions from the pupil images of various telescopes: James Webb Space Telescope, Keck, Giant Magellan Telescope, Thirty Meter Telescope, and Extremely Large Telescope. We take into account detector pixel scales and noise, and apply deconvolution techniques for image recovery. We also model 2D maps of the 10-micron silicate feature strength, $S_{10}$, of NGC 1068 and compare with observations. When the torus is resolved, we find $S_{10}$ variations across the image. However, to reproduce the $S_{10}$ measurements of an unresolved torus a dusty screen of $A_V > 9$ mag is required. We also fit the first resolved image of the K-band emission in NGC 1068 recently published by the GRAVITY collaboration, deriving likely model parameters of the underlying dust distribution. We find that both 1) an elongated structure suggestive of a highly inclined emission ring, and 2) a geometrically thin but optically thick flared disk where the emission arises from a narrow strip of hot cloud surface layers on the far inner side of the torus funnel, can explain the observations., 21 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

To study the nuclear (≲1 kpc) dust of nearby (z < 0.1) quasi-stellar objects (QSOs), we obtained new near-infrared (NIR) high angular resolution (∼0.″3) photometry in the H and Ks bands for 13 QSOs with available mid-infrared (MIR) high angular resolution spectroscopy (∼7.5-13.5 μm). We find that in most QSOs, the NIR emission is unresolved. We subtract the contribution from the accretion disk, which decreases from NIR (∼35%) to MIR (∼2.4%). We also estimate these percentages assuming a bluer accretion disk and find that the contribution in the MIR is nearly seven times larger. We find that the majority of objects (64%, 9/13) are better fitted by the disk+wind H17 model, while others can be fitted by the smooth F06 (14%, 2/13), clumpy N08 (7%, 1/13), clumpy H10 (7%, 1/13), and two-phase media S16 (7%, 1/13) models. However, if we assume the bluer accretion disk, the models fit only 2/13 objects. We measured two NIR-to-MIR spectral indexes, α NIR-MIR(1.6-8.7 μm) and α NIR-MIR(2.2-8.7 μm), and two MIR spectral indexes, α MIR(7.8-9.8 μm) and α MIR(9.8-11.7 μm), from models and observations. From observations, we find that the NIR-to-MIR spectral indexes are ∼-1.1, and the MIR spectral indexes are ∼-0.3. Comparing the synthetic and observed values, we find that none of the models simultaneously match the measured NIR-to-MIR and 7.8-9.8 μm slopes. However, we note that measuring α MIR(7.8-9.8 μm) on the starburst-subtracted Spitzer/IRS spectrum gives values of the slopes (∼-2) that are similar to the synthetic values obtained from the models. © 2021. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved., M.M.-P. acknowledges support from the KASI postdoctoral fellowships. O.G.-M. acknowledges support from the UNAM PAPIIT [IN105720]. I.G.B. acknowledges support from the STFC through grant ST/S000488/1. C.R.A. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIU) under grant RYC-2014–15779, the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 860744 (BiD4BESt), and the State Research Agency (AEI-MCINN) of the Spanish MCIU under grants "Feeding and feedback in active galaxies" with reference PID2019–106027GB-C42 and "Quantifying the impact of quasar feedback on galaxy evolution (QSOFEED)" with reference EUR2020–112266. C.R.A. also acknowledges support from the Consejería de Economía, Conocimiento y Empleo del Gobierno de Canarias and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under grant ProID2020010105 and from IAC project P/301404, financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation through the State Budget and by the Canary Islands Department of Economy, Knowledge and Employment through the Regional Budget of the Autonomous Community. A.A.-H. acknowledges support from PGC2018-094671-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER,UE). A.A.-H.'s work was done under project No. MDM-2017-0737 Unidad de Excelencia "María de Maeztu"- Centro de Astrobiología (INTA-CSIC). I.A. acknowledges support from project CB2016-281948. J.M. acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the "Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa" award to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709) and research projects AYA2016-76682-C3-1-P (AEI/FEDER, UE) and PID2019-106027GB-C41 (AEI/FEDER, UE).

Near- and mid-infrared interferometers have resolved the dusty parsec-scale obscurer (torus) around nearby active galactic nuclei (AGNs). With the arrival of extremely large single-aperture telescopes, the emission morphology will soon be resolvable unambiguously, without modeling directly the underlying brightness distribution probed by interferometers today. Simulations must instead deliver the projected 2D brightness distribution as a result of radiative transfer through a 3D distribution of dusty matter around the AGN. We employ such physically motivated 3D dust distributions in tori around AGNs to compute 2D images of the emergent thermal emission using CLUMPY, a dust radiative transfer code for clumpy media. We demonstrate that CLUMPY models can exhibit morphologies with significant polar elongation in the mid-infrared (i.e. the emission extends perpendicular to the dust distribution) on scales of several parsecs, in line with observations in several nearby AGNs. We characterize the emission and cloud distribution morphologies. The observed emission from near- to mid-infrared wavelengths generally does not trace the bulk of the cloud distribution. The elongation of the emission is sensitive to the torus opening angle or scale height. For cloud distributions with a flat radial profile, polar extended emission is realized only at wavelengths shorter than ~18 micron, and shorter than ~5 micron for steep profiles. We make the full results available through HYPERCAT, a large hypercube of resolved AGN torus brightness maps computed with CLUMPY. HYPERCAT also comprises software to process and analyze such large data cubes and provides tools to simulate observations with various current and future telescopes., 28 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

arXiv:2103.03584v1, We use the SPace Infrared telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA) project as a template to demonstrate how deep spectrophotometric surveys covering large cosmological volumes over extended fields (1–15 deg2) with a mid-IR imaging spectrometer (17–36 µm) in conjunction with deep photometry with a far-IR camera, at wavelengths which are not affected by dust extinction can answer the most crucial questions in current galaxy evolution studies. A SPICA-like mission will be able for the first time to provide an unobscured three-dimensional (3D, i.e. x, y, and redshift z) view of galaxy evolution back to an age of the universe of less than ∼ 2 Gyrs, in the mid-IR rest frame. This survey strategy will produce a full census of the Star Formation Rate (SFR) in the universe, using polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) bands and fine-structure ionic lines, reaching the characteristic knee of the galaxy luminosity function, where the bulk of the population is distributed, at any redshift up to z ∼ 3.5. Deep follow-up pointed spectroscopic observations with grating spectrometers onboard the satellite, across the full IR spectral range (17–210 µm), would simultaneously measure Black Hole Accretion Rate (BHAR), from high-ionisation fine-structure lines, and SFR, from PAH and low- to mid-ionisation lines in thousands of galaxies from solar to low metallicities, down to the knee of their luminosity functions. The analysis of the resulting atlas of IR spectra will reveal the physical processes at play in evolving galaxies across cosmic time, especially its heavily dust-embedded phase during the activity peak at the cosmic noon (z ∼ 1–3), through IR emission lines and features that are insensitive to the dust obscuration., LS and JAFO acknowledge financial support by the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) under the research contract 2018-31-HH.0. AAH acknowledges support from grants PGC2018-094671-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER,UE) and No. MDM-2017-0737 at Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu-Centro de Astrobiología (INTACSIC). FJC acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry MCIU under project RTI2018-096686-B-C21 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER/UE), cofunded by FEDER funds and from the Agencia Estatal de Investigación, Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu, ref. MDM-2017-0765. HD acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MICIU) under the 2014 Ramón y Cajal program RYC-2014-15686 and AYA2017-84061-P, the later one co-financed by FEDER (European Regional Development Funds). AL acknowledges the support from Comunidad de Madrid through the Atracción de Talento grant 2017-T1/TIC-5213. MPS acknowledges support from the Comunidad de Madrid, Spain, through Atracción de Talento Investigador Grant 2018-T1/TIC-11035.

Galaxies with nuclear bars are believed to efficiently drive gas inward, generating a nuclear starburst and possibly an active galactic nucleus. We confirm this scenario for the isolated, double-barred, luminous infrared galaxy ESO 320-G030 based on an analysis of Herschel and ALMA spectroscopic observations. Herschel/PACS and SPIRE observations of ESO 320-G030 show absorption or emission in 18 lines of H2O, which we combine with the ALMA H2O 4(23)-3(30) 448 GHz line (E-upper similar to 400 K) and continuum images to study the physical properties of the nuclear region. Radiative transfer models indicate that three nuclear components are required to account for the multi-transition H2O and continuum data. An envelope, with radius R similar to 130-150 pc, dust temperature T-dust approximate to 50 K, and N-H2 similar to 2x10(23) cm(-2), surrounds a nuclear disk with R similar to 40 pc that is optically thick in the far-infrared (tau (100 mu m)similar to 1.5-3, N-H2 similar to 2x10(24) cm(-2)). In addition, an extremely compact (R similar to 12 pc), warm (approximate to 100 K), and buried (tau (100 mu m)> 5, N-H2 greater than or similar to 5x10(24) cm(-2)) core component is required to account for the very high-lying H2O absorption lines. The three nuclear components account for 70% of the galaxy luminosity (SFR similar to 16-18 M-circle dot yr(-1)). The nucleus is fed by a molecular inflow observed in CO 2-1 with ALMA, which is associated with the nuclear bar. With decreasing radius (r=450-225 pc), the mass inflow rate increases up to M-inf similar to 20 M yr(-1), which is similar to the nuclear star formation rate (SFR), indicating that the starburst is sustained by the inflow. At lower r, similar to 100-150 pc, the inflow is best probed by the far-infrared OH ground-state doublets, with an estimated M-inf similar to 30 M yr(-1). The inferred short timescale of similar to 20 Myr for nuclear gas replenishment indicates quick secular evolution, and indicates that we are witnessing an intermediate stage (< 100 Myr) proto-pseudobulge fed by a massive inflow that is driven by a strong nuclear bar. We also apply the H2O model to the Herschel far-infrared spectroscopic observations of H218O, OH, 18OH, OH+, H2O+, H3O+, NH, NH2, NH3, CH, CH+, 13CH+, HF, SH, and C3, and we estimate their abundances. © ESO 2021., EG-A is grateful for the warm hospitality of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, where part of the present study was carried out, and thanks Javier Goicoechea for useful conversations on the far-IR spectrum of Sgr B2, Alex Crespo Gomez for sharing preliminary results on the stellar kinematics in ESO 320-G030, and Juan Rafael Martinez-Galarza for useful conversations on the Bayesian analysis. We thank the anonymous referee for constructive and helpful comments on the manuscript. PACS was developed by a consortium of institutes led by MPE (Germany) and including UVIE (Austria); KU Leuven, CSL, IMEC (Belgium); CEA, LAM (France); MPIA (Germany); INAFIFSI/OAA/OAP/OAT, LENS, SISSA (Italy); IAC (Spain). This development has been supported by the funding agencies BMVIT (Austria), ESA-PRODEX (Belgium), CEA/CNES (France), DLR (Germany), ASI/INAF (Italy), and CICYT/MCYT (Spain). SPIRE was developed by a consortium of institutes led by Cardiff University (UK) and including Univ. Lethbridge (Canada); NAOC (China); CEA, LAM (France); IFSI, Univ. Padua (Italy); IAC (Spain); Stockholm Observatory (Sweden); Imperial College London, RAL, UCL-MSSL, UKATC, Univ. Sussex (UK); and Caltech, JPL, NHSC, Univ.Colorado (USA). This development has been supported by national funding agencies: CSA (Canada); NAOC (China); CEA, CNES, CNRS (France); ASI (Italy); MCINN (Spain); SNSB (Sweden); STFC, UKSA (UK); and NASA (USA). This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMA#2016.1.00263.S and ADS/JAO.ALMA#2013.1.00271.S. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada) and NSC and ASIAA (Taiwan) and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ. Based on observations made with ESO Telescopes at the Paranal Observatory under programme ID 086.B-0901(A). EG-A is a Research Associate at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. EG-A, JM-P, and FR-V thank the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad for support under projects ESP2017-86582-C4-1-R and PID2019-105552RB-C41. EG-A and HAS thank NASA grant ADAP NNX15AE56G. MP-S acknowledges support from the Comunidad de Madrid, Spain, through Atraccion de Talento Investigador Grant 2018-T1/TIC-11035 and PID2019-105423GA-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER,UE). AA-H and SG-B acknowledge support through grant PGC2018-094671-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER,UE). LC, AA-H, MP-S, and JM-P acknowledge support under project No. MDM-2017-0737 Unidad de Excelencia "Maria de Maeztu" - Centro de Astrobiologia (INTA-CSIC). SG-B acknowledges support from the Spanish MINECO and FEDER funding grant AYA2016-76682-C3-2-P. C.Y. acknowledges support from an ESO Fellowship. LC acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad for support under project ESP2017-83197. SC acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the 'Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa' award to the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (SEV-2017-0709). This research has made use of NASA's Astrophysics Data System (ADS) and of GILDAS software.

We present the first results of the Galaxy Activity, Torus and Outflow Survey (GATOS), a project aimed at understanding the properties of the dusty molecular tori and their connection to the host galaxy in nearby Seyfert galaxies. Our project expands the range of AGN luminosities and Eddington ratios covered by previous surveys of Seyferts conducted by ALMA and allows us to study the gas feeding and feedback cycle in a combined sample of 19 Seyferts. We used ALMA to obtain new images of the emission of molecular gas and dust using the CO(3-2) and HCO+(4-3) lines as well as their underlying continuum emission at 870 microns with high spatial resolutions (0.1'' ~ 7 - 13 pc) in the CND of 10 nearby (D < 28 Mpc) Seyfert galaxies. Our new ALMA observations detect 870 micron continuum and CO line emission from spatially resolved disks located around the AGN in all the sources. The bulk of the continuum flux can be accounted for by thermal emission from dust in the majority of the targets. For most of the sources the disks show a preponderant orientation perpendicular to the AGN wind axes, as expected for dusty molecular tori. The median diameters and molecular gas masses of the tori are ~ 42 pc, and ~ 6 x 10**5 Msun, respectively. We find a positive correlation between the line-of-sight gas column densities responsible for the absorption of X-rays and the molecular gas column densities derived from CO towards the AGN in our sources. The radial distributions of molecular gas in the CND of our combined sample show signs of nuclear-scale molecular gas deficits. We also detect molecular outflows in the sources that show the most extreme nuclear-scale gas deficits in our sample. These observations find for the first time supporting evidence that the imprint of AGN feedback is more extreme in higher luminosity and/or higher Eddington ratio Seyfert galaxies., 41 pages, new version revised and accepted by A&A on the 22nd of June 2021

We used high-spatial resolution (70 pc; 0$ {{\overset{\prime\prime}{.}}} $3) CO multi-transition (J = 1-0, 2-1, 4-3, and 6-5) ALMA data to study the physical conditions and kinematics of the cold molecular outflow in the local luminous infrared galaxy (LIRG) ESO 320-G030 (d = 48 Mpc, LIR/L = 1011.3). ESO 320-G030 is a double-barred isolated spiral, but its compact and obscured nuclear starburst (SFR ∼15 M yr-1; AV ∼40 mag) resembles those of ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (LIR/L > 1012). In the outflow, the CO(1-0)/CO(2-1) ratio is enhanced with respect to the rest of the galaxy and the CO(4-3) transition is undetected. This indicates that the outflowing molecular gas is less excited than the molecular gas in the nuclear starburst (i.e., outflow launching site) and in the galaxy disk. Non-local thermodynamic equilibrium radiative transfer modeling reveals that the properties of the molecular clouds in the outflow differ from those of the nuclear and disk clouds: The kinetic temperature is lower (Tkin ∼ 9 K) in the outflow, and the outflowing clouds have lower column densities. Assuming a 10-4 CO abundance, the large internal velocity gradients, 60-45+250 km s-1 pc-1, imply that the outflowing molecular clouds are not bound by self-gravity. All this suggests that the life-cycle (formation, collapse, dissipation) of the galaxy disk molecular clouds might differ from that of the outflowing molecular clouds which might not be able to form stars. The low kinetic temperature of the molecular outflow remains constant at radial distances between 0.3 and 1.7 kpc. This indicates that the heating by the hotter ionized outflow phase is not efficient and may favor the survival of the molecular gas phase in the outflow. The spatially resolved velocity structure of the outflow shows a 0.8 km s-1 pc-1 velocity gradient between 190 pc and 560 pc and then a constant maximum outflow velocity of about 700-800 km s-1 up to 1.7 kpc. This could be compatible with a pure gravitational evolution of the outflow, which would require coupled variations of the mass outflow rate and the outflow launching velocity distribution. Alternatively, a combination of ram pressure acceleration and cloud evaporation could explain the observed kinematics and the total size of the cold molecular phase of the outflow. © ESO 2020., MPS acknowledges support from the Comunidad de Madrid through the Atracción de Talento Investigador Grant 2018-T1/TIC11035, PID2019-105423GA-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER,UE), and STFC through Grants ST/N000919/1 and ST/N002717/1. L. C. acknowledge financial support by the Spanish MICINN under Grant ESP2017-83197. A. A.-H., S. G.-B., and A. U. acknowledge support through Grant PGC2018-094671-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER,UE). E. GA is a Research Associate at the HarvardSmithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and thanks the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad for support under project ESP2017-86582-C4- 1-R. J. P.-L. acknowledge financial support by the Spanish MICINN under Grant AYA2017-85170-R. M. P. S., A. A.-H., L. C., J. P.-L. and S. A. work was done under project No. MDM-2017-0737 Unidad de Excelencia “María de Maeztu”- Centro de Astrobiología (INTA-CSIC). DR acknowledges support from ST/S000488/1 and the University of Oxford Fell Fund. This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMA#2016.1.00263.S, ADS/JAO.ALMA#2013.1.00271.S. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada) and NSC and ASIAA (Taiwan) and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc

Nearby galaxies offer unique laboratories allowing multi-wavelength spatially resolved studies of the interstellar medium, star formation and nuclear activity across a broad range of physical conditions. In particular, detailed studies of individual local luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) are crucial for gaining a better understanding of these processes and for developing and testing models that are used to explain statistical studies of large populations of such galaxies at high redshift for which it is currently impossible to reach a sufficient physical resolution. Here, we provide an overview of the impact of spatially resolved infrared, sub-millimetre and radio observations in the study of the interstellar medium, star formation and active galactic nuclei as well as their interplay in local LIRGs. We also present an overview of the modelling of their spectral energy distributions using state-of-the-art radiative transfer codes. These contribute necessary and powerful ‘workhorse’ tools for the study of LIRGs (and their more luminous counterparts) at higher redshifts which are unresolved in observations. We describe how spatially-resolved time-domain observations have recently opened a new window to study the nuclear activity in LIRGs. We describe in detail the observational characteristics of Arp 299 which is one of the best studied local LIRGs and exemplifies the power of the combination of time-domain and high-resolution observations at infrared to radio wavelengths together with radiative transfer modelling used to explain the spectral energy distributions of its different components. We summarise the previous achievements obtained using high-spatial resolution observations and provide an outlook into what we can expect to achieve with future facilities. © 2021, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature., MPT acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa award to the Instituto de Astrofi ' sica de Andaluci ' a (SEV-2017-0709) and through grant PGC2018-098915-B-C21 (MCI/AEI/FEDER, UE) as well as from the visitor and mobility program of the Finnish Centre for Astronomy with ESO (FINCA), funded by the Academy of Finland grant nr 306531. AA-H acknowledges support through grant PGC 2018-094671-BI00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE). AA-H work was done under project No. MDM-2017-0737 Unidad de Excelencia "Maria de Maeztu'' - Centro de Astrobiologia (INTA-CSIC). SA gratefully acknowledges support from an ERC Advanced Grant 789410 and from the Swedish Research Council. AE acknowledges support from the Cyprus Research & Innovation Foundation (GRATOS; EXCELLENCE/1216/0207) and the European Space Agency (CYGNUS; ESA contract 400126896/19/NL/MH).

Context. Arp 299 is the brightest luminous infrared galaxy (LIRG) within 50 Mpc, with IR luminosity log(LIR/L⊙) = 11.9. It provides a unique laboratory for testing physical processes in merging galaxies. Aims. We study for the first time the low-frequency (∼150 MHz) radio brightness distribution of Arp 299 at subarcsecond resolution, tracing in both compact and extended emission regions the local spectral energy distribution (SED) in order to characterize the dominant emission and absorption processes. Methods. We analysed the spatially resolved emission of Arp 299 revealed by 150 MHz international baseline Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) and 1.4, 5.0, and 8.4 GHz Very Large Array (VLA) observations. Results. We present the first subarcsecond (0.4″ ×100 pc) image of the whole Arp 299 system at 150 MHz. The high surface brightness sensitivity of our LOFAR observations (∼100 μJy beam-1) allowed us to detect all of the nuclear components detected at higher frequencies, as well as the extended steep-spectrum emission surrounding the nuclei. We obtained spatially resolved, two-point spectral index maps for the whole galaxy: the compact nuclei show relatively flat spectra, while the extended, diffuse component shows a steep spectrum. We fitted the radio SED of the nuclear regions using two different models: a continuous free-free medium model and a clumpy model. The continuous model can explain the SED of the nuclei assuming a population of relativistic electrons subjected to synchrotron, bremsstrahlung, and ionization losses. The clumpy model fits assuming relativistic electrons with negligible energy losses, and thermal fractions that are more typical of star-forming galaxies than those required for the continuous model. Conclusions. Our results confirm the usefulness of combining spatially resolved radio imaging at both MHz and GHz frequencies to characterize in detail the radio emission properties of LIRGs from the central 100 pc out to the kiloparsec galaxy-wide scales. © ESO 2022., N.R.O., M.P.T. and A.A. acknowledge support by the Spanish MCIU through grant PGC2018-098915-B-C21 cofunded with FEDER funds and from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709). A.A-H. and M.P.S. acknowledge support through grant PGC2018-094671-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER,UE). A.A-H. and M.P.S. workwas done under project No. MDM-2017-0737 Unidad de Excelencia “María de Maeztu” – Centro de Astrobiología (INTA-CSIC). M.P.S. acknowledges support from the Comunidad de Madrid, Spain, through Atracción de Talento Investigador Grant 2018-T1/TIC-11035 and PID2019-105423GA-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER,UE).

We present a method for recovering the intrinsic (extinction-corrected) luminosity of the 11.2 micron PAH band in galaxy spectra. Using 105 high S/N Spitzer/IRS spectra of star-forming galaxies, we show that the equivalent width ratio of the 12.7 and 11.2 micron PAH bands is independent on the optical depth, with small dispersion of ~5% indicative of a nearly constant intrinsic flux ratio R_int = (f_12.7/f_11.2)_int = 0.377 +/- 0.020. Conversely, the observed flux ratio, R_obs = (f_12.7/f_11.2)_obs strongly correlates with the silicate strength (S_sil) confirming that differences in R_obs reflect variation in the optical depth. The relation between R_obs and S_sil reproduces predictions for the Galactic Centre extinction law but disagrees with other laws. We calibrate the total extinction affecting the 11.2 micron PAH from R_obs, which we apply to another sample of 215 galaxies with accurate measurements of the total infrared luminosity (L_IR) to investigate the impact of extinction on L_11.2/L_IR. Correlation between L_11.2/L_IR and R_obs independently on L_IR suggests that increased extinction explains the well known decrease in the average L_11.2/L_IR at high L_IR. The extinction-corrected L_11.2 is proportional to L_IR in the range L_IR/L_sun = 10^9--10^13. These results consolidate L_11.2 as a robust tracer of star formation in galaxies., Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

The obscuring structure surrounding active galactic nuclei (AGN) can be explained as a dust and gas flow cycle that fundamentally connects the AGN with their host galaxies. This structure is believed to be associated with dusty winds driven by radiation pressure. However, the role of magnetic fields, which are invoked in almost all models for accretion onto a supermassive black hole and outflows, is not thoroughly studied. Here we report the first detection of polarized thermal emission by means of magnetically aligned dust grains in the dusty torus of NGC 1068 using ALMA Cycle 4 polarimetric dust continuum observations ($0.07"$, $4.2$ pc; 348.5 GHz, $860$ $\mu$m). The polarized torus has an asymmetric variation across the equatorial axis with a peak polarization of $3.7\pm0.5$\% and position angle of $109\pm2^{\circ}$ (B-vector) at $\sim8$ pc east from the core. We compute synthetic polarimetric observations of magnetically aligned dust grains assuming a toroidal magnetic field and homogeneous grain alignment. We conclude that the measured 860 $\mu$m continuum polarization arises from magnetically aligned dust grains in an optically thin region of the torus. The asymmetric polarization across the equatorial axis of the torus arises from 1) an inhomogeneous optical depth, and 2) a variation of the velocity dispersion, i.e. variation of the magnetic field turbulence at sub-pc scales, from the eastern to the western region of the torus. These observations and modeling constrain the torus properties beyond spectral energy distribution results. This study strongly supports that magnetic fields up to a few pc contribute to the accretion flow onto the active nuclei., Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures (Accepted for Publication to ApJ)

We present subarcsecond 7.5-13 μm imaging- and spectro-polarimetric observations of NGC 1068 using CanariCam on the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio CANARIAS. At all wavelengths, we find: (1) A 90 × 60 pc extended polarized feature in the northern ionization cone, with a uniform ~44° polarization angle. Its polarization arises from dust and gas emission in the ionization cone, heated by the active nucleus and jet, and further extinguished by aligned dust grains in the host galaxy. The polarization spectrum of the jet-molecular cloud interaction at ~24 pc from the core is highly polarized, and does not show a silicate feature, suggesting that the dust grains are different from those in the interstellar medium. (2) A southern polarized feature at ~9.6 pc from the core. Its polarization arises from a dust emission component extinguished by a large concentration of dust in the galaxy disc. We cannot distinguish between dust emission from magnetically aligned dust grains directly heated by the jet close to the core, and aligned dust grains in the dusty obscuring material surrounding the central engine. Silicate-like grains reproduce the polarized dust emission in this feature, suggesting different dust compositions in both ionization cones. (3) An upper limit of polarization degree of 0.3 per cent in the core. Based on our polarization model, the expected polarization of the obscuring dusty material is ≲ 0.1 per cent in the 8-13 μm wavelength range. This low polarization may be arising from the passage of radiation through aligned dust grains in the shielded edges of the clumps., AA-H acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under the 2011 Severo Ochoa Program MINECO SEV-2011- 0187. AA-H acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through grant AYA2012-31447, which is partly funded by the FEDER program, PE from grant AYA2012-31277, and LC from grant AYA2012-32295. RN acknowledges support by FONDECYT grant no. 3140436. CRA is supported by a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme (PIEF-GA-2012-327934). EP acknowledges support from NSF grant AST-0904896.

The James Webb Space Telescope will provide deep imaging and spectroscopy for sources at redshifts above 6, covering the Epoch of Reionization (EoR, 6 < z < 10). The Mid-IR instrument (MIRI) integral field spectrograph (MRS) will be the only instrument on board JWST able to observe the brightest optical emission lines H$\alpha$ and [OIII]0.5007$\mu$m at redshifts above 7 and 9, respectively. This paper presents a study of the H$\alpha$ fluxes predicted by FIRSTLIGHT cosmological simulations for galaxies at redshifts of 6.5 to 10.5, and its detectability with MIRI. Deep (40 ks) spectroscopic integrations with MRS will be able to detect (S/N > 5) EoR sources at redshifts above 7 with intrinsic star formation rates of more than 2 M$_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$, and stellar masses above 4-9 $\times$ 10$^7$ M$_{\odot}$. In addition, the paper presents realistic MRS simulated observations of the expected (rest-frame) optical and near-infrared spectra for some spectroscopically confirmed EoR sources detected by ALMA as [OIII]88$\mu$m emitters. The MRS simulated spectra cover a wide range of low metallicities from about 0.2 to 0.02Z$_{\odot}$, and different [OIII]88$\mu$m/[OIII]0.5007$\mu$m line ratios. The simulated 10ks MRS spectra show S/N in the range of 5 to 90 for H$\beta$, [OIII]0.4959,0.5007$\mu$m, H$\alpha$ and HeI1.083$\mu$m emission lines of MACS1149-JD1 at z = 9.11, independent of metallicity. In addition, deep 40 ks simulated spectra of the luminous merger candidate B14-65666 at z=7.15 shows the MRS capabilities of detecting, or putting strong upper limits, on the [NII]0.6584$\mu$m, [SII]0.6717,0.6731$\mu$m, and [SIII]0.9069,0.9532$\mu$m emission lines. In summary, MRS will enable the detailed study of key physical properties like internal extinction, instantaneous star formation, hardness of the ionising continuum, and metallicity, in bright (intrinsic or lensed) EoR sources., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, Accepted for publication in A&A

We characterize for the first time the torus properties of an ultra-hard X-ray (14-195 keV) volume-limited (DL < 40 Mpc) sample of 24 Seyfert (Sy) galaxies (BCS sample). The sample was selected from the Swift/BAT nine-month catalogue.We use high angular resolution nuclear infrared (IR) photometry and N-band spectroscopy, the CLUMPY torus models and a Bayesian tool to characterize the properties of the nuclear dust. In the case of the Sy1s, we estimate the accretion disc contribution to the subarcsecond resolution nuclear IR SEDs (~0.4 arcsec) which is, on average, 46 ± 28, 23 ± 13, and 11 ± 5 per cent in the J, H, and K bands, respectively. This indicates that the accretion disc templates that assume a steep fall for longer wavelengths than 1 μm might underestimate its contribution to the near-IR emission. Using both optical (broad versus narrow lines) and X-ray (unabsorbed versus absorbed) classifications, we compare the global posterior distribution of the torus model parameters. We confirm that Sy2s have larger values of the torus covering factor (CT ~ 0.95) than Sy1s (CT ~ 0.65) in our volume-limited Seyfert sample. These findings are independent of whether we use an optical or X-ray classification.We find that the torus covering factor remains essentially constant within the errors in our luminosity range and there is no clear dependence with the Eddington ratio. Finally, we find tentative evidence that even an ultra-hard X-ray selection is missing a significant fraction of highly absorbed type 2 sources with very high covering factor tori.© 2019 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society., IGB acknowledges financial support from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias through Fundacion La Caixa. IGB also acknowledges Oxford University and Durham University for their hospitality during his stays in 2017 August when this project was started and 2018 May, respectively. IGB also acknowledges Cardiff University for their hospitality from 2018 May to August. CRA and IGB acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) through project AYA2016-76682-C3-2-P. IGB, AAH, and FJC also acknowledge financial support through grant PN AYA2015-64346-C2-1-P (MINECO/FEDER). Funded by the Agencia Estatal de Investigacion, Unidad de Excelencia Maria de Maeztu. CRA also acknowledges the Ramon y Cajal Program of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. MPS acknowledges support from STFC through grant ST/N000919/1. OGM thanks to the PAPIIT UNAM project IA103118. SM acknowledges financial support through grant AYA2016-76730-P (MINECO/FEDER). IM and JM acknowledge financial support from the research project AYA2016-76682-C3-1-P (AEI/FEDER, UE). LF and CP acknowledge support from the NSF- grant number 1616828.

We analyse a sample of 85 luminous (log(nuLnu(3\um)/erg s-1)>45.5) quasars with restframe ~2-11 \um spectroscopy from AKARI and Spitzer. Their high luminosity allows a direct determination of the near-infrared quasar spectrum free from host galaxy emission. A semi-empirical model consisting of a single template for the accretion disk and two blackbodies for the dust emission successfully reproduces the 0.1-10 \um spectral energy distributions (SEDs). Excess emission at 1-2 \um over the best-fitting model suggests that hotter dust is necessary in addition to the ~1200 K blackbody and the disk to reproduce the entire near-infrared spectrum. Variation in the extinction affecting the disk and in the relative strength of the disk and dust components accounts for the diversity of individual SEDs. Quasars with higher dust-to-disk luminosity ratios show slightly redder infrared continua and less prominent silicate emission. We find no luminosity dependence in the shape of the average infrared quasar spectrum. We generate a new quasar template that covers the restframe range 0.1-11 \um, and separate templates for the disk and dust components. Comparison with other infrared quasar composites suggests that previous ones are less reliable in the 2-4 \um range. Our template is the first one to provide a detailed view of the infrared emission on both sides of the 4 \um bump., 26 pages, 14 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

The physical processes driving the evolution of star formation (SF) in galaxies over cosmic time still present many open questions. Recent galaxy surveys allow now to study these processes in great detail at intermediate redshift. In this work, we build a complete sample of star-forming galaxies and analyze their properties, reaching systems with low stellar masses and low star formation rates (SFRs) at intermediate-to-low redshift. We use data from the SHARDS multiband survey in the GOODS-North field. Its depth (up to magnitude $\langle m_{3\sigma}\rangle\sim26.5$) and its spectro-photometric resolution ($R\sim50$) provides us with an ideal dataset to search for emission line galaxies (ELGs). We develop a new algorithm to identify low-redshift ($z$, Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. 17 pages, 17 figures

Infrared (IR) interferometry has made widely recognised contributions to the way we look at the dusty environment of supermassive black holes on parsec scales. It finally provided direct evidence for orientation-dependent unification of active galaxies, however it also showed that the classical "torus" picture is oversimplified. New scientific opportunities for AGN have been suggested, and will soon be carried out, focusing on the dynamical aspects of spectrally and spatially resolved interferometry, as well as the potential to employ interferometry for cosmology. This will open interferometry to new scientific communities., contribution to the report on the Future of OIR Interferometry in Europe, published in Experimental Astronomy, 46, 413 (2018)

The Planet Formation Imager (PFI) is a near- and mid-infrared interferometer project with the driving science goal of imaging directly the key stages of planet formation, including the young proto-planets themselves. Here, we will present an update on the work of the Science Working Group (SWG), including new simulations of dust structures during the assembly phase of planet formation and quantitative detection efficiencies for accreting and non-accreting young exoplanets as a function of mass and age. We use these results to motivate two reference PFI designs consisting of a) twelve 3m telescopes with a maximum baseline of 1.2km focused on young exoplanet imaging and b) twelve 8m telescopes optimized for a wider range of young exoplanets and protoplanetary disk imaging out to the 150K H2O ice line. Armed with 4x8m telescopes, the ESO/VLTI can already detect young exoplanets in principle and projects such as MATISSE, Hi-5 and Heimdallr are important PFI pathfinders to make this possible. We also discuss the state of technology development needed to make PFI more affordable, including progress towards new designs for inexpensive, small field-of-view, large aperture telescopes and prospects for Cubesat-based space interferometry., Comment: Presented at 2018 SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, Austin, Texas, USA. See www.planetformationimager.org for more information

We present observations of NGC 1068 covering the $19.7-53.0$ $\mu$m wavelength range using FORCAST and HAWC+ onboard SOFIA. Using these observations, high-angular resolution infrared (IR) and sub-mm observations, we find an observational turn-over of the torus emission in the $30-40$ $\mu$m wavelength range with a characteristic temperature of $70-100$ K. This component is clearly different from the diffuse extended emission in the narrow line and star formation regions at 10-100 $\mu$m within the central 700 pc. We compute $2.2-432$ $\mu$m 2D images using the best inferred \textsc{clumpy} torus model based on several nuclear spectral energy distribution (SED) coverages. We find that when $1-20$ $\mu$m SED is used, the inferred result gives a small torus size ($, Comment: 12 pages, 7 Figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ

We combine new (NGC 1275, NGC 4151, and NGC 5506) and previously published (Cygnus A, Mrk 231, and NGC 1068) sub-arcsecond resolution mid-infrared (MIR; 8-13 $��$m) imaging- and spectro-polarimetric observations of six Seyfert galaxies using CanariCam on the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio CANARIAS. These observations reveal a diverse set of physical processes responsible for the nuclear polarization, and permit characterization of the origin of the MIR nuclear polarimetric signature of active galactic nuclei (AGN). For all radio quiet objects, we found that the nuclear polarization is low (, 9 pages, 4 figures. Accepted to MNRAS

We present new CO(2–1) observations of three low-z (d ∼ 350 Mpc) ultra-luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) systems (six nuclei) observed with the Atacama large millimeter/submillimeter array (ALMA) at high spatial resolution (∼500 pc). We detect massive cold molecular gas outflows in five out of six nuclei (Mout ∼ (0.3−5) ×108 M). These outflows are spatially resolved with deprojected effective radii between 250 pc and 1 kpc although high-velocity molecular gas is detected up to Rmax ∼ 0.5−1.8 kpc (1−6 kpc deprojected). The mass outflow rates are 12−400 M yr−1 and the inclination corrected average velocity of the outflowing gas is 350−550 km s−1 (vmax = 500−900 km s−1). The origin of these outflows can be explained by the strong nuclear starbursts although the contribution of an obscured active galactic nucleus cannot be completely ruled out. The position angle (PA) of the outflowing gas along the kinematic minor axis of the nuclear molecular disk suggests that the outflow axis is perpendicular to the disk for three of these outflows. Only in one case is the outflow PA clearly not along the kinematic minor axis, which might indicate a different outflow geometry. The outflow depletion times are 15−80 Myr. These are comparable to, although slightly shorter than, the star-formation (SF) depletion times (30−80 Myr). However, we estimate that only 15−30% of the outflowing molecular gas will escape the gravitational potential of the nucleus. The majority of the outflowing gas will return to the disk after 5−10 Myr and become available to form new stars. Therefore, these outflows will not likely completely quench the nuclear starbursts. These star-forming powered molecular outflows would be consistent with being driven by radiation pressure from young stars (i.e., momentum-driven) only if the coupling between radiation and dust increases with increasing SF rates. This can be achieved if the dust optical depth is higher in objects with higher SF. This is the case in at least one of the studied objects. Alternatively, if the outflows are mainly driven by supernovae (SNe), the coupling efficiency between the interstellar medium and SNe must increase with increasing SF levels. The relatively small sizes (, L.C., S.G.B., and A.L. acknowledge financial support by the Spanish MEC under grants ESP2015-68964 and AYA2016-76682-C3-2-P.

We present ALMA Band 6 $^{12}$CO(2--1) line and rest-frame 232GHz continuum observations of the nearby Compton-thick Seyfert galaxy NGC5643 with angular resolutions 0.11-0.26arcsec (9-21pc). The CO(2--1) integrated line map reveals emission from the nuclear and circumnuclear region with a two-arm nuclear spiral extending 10arcsec on each side. The circumnuclear CO(2--1) kinematics can be fitted with a rotating disk, although there are regions with large residual velocities and/or velocity dispersions. The CO(2--1) line profiles of these regions show two different velocity components. One is ascribed to the circular component and the other to the interaction of the AGN outflow, as traced by the [O III]5007AA emission, with molecular gas in the disk a few hundred parsecs from the AGN. On nuclear scales, we detected an inclined CO(2--1) disk (diameter 26 pc, FWHM) oriented almost in a north-south direction. The CO(2--1) nuclear kinematics can be fitted with a rotating disk which appears to be tilted with respect to the large scale disk. There are strong non-circular motions in the central 0.2-0.3 arcsec with velocities of up to 110km/s. In the absence of a nuclear bar, these motions could be explained as radial outflows in the nuclear disk. We estimate a total molecular gas mass for the nuclear disk of $M({\rm H}_2)=1.1\times 10^7\,M_\odot$ and an H$_2$ column density toward the location of the AGN of $N({\rm H}_2)\sim 5 \times 10^{23}\,{\rm cm}^{-2}$, for a standard CO-to-H$_2$ conversion factor. We interpret this nuclear molecular gas disk as the obscuring torus of NGC5643 as well as the collimating structure of the ionization cone., 16 papes, 9 figures. Accepted to ApJ. Updated Fig.4

arXiv:1710.00826v1, We analyze the properties of a multiply imaged Lyα (Lyα) emitter at z = 5.75 identified through SHARDS Frontier Fields intermediate-band imaging of the Hubble Frontier Fields (HFF) cluster Abell 370. The source, A370-L57, has low intrinsic luminosity (M ∼ -16.5), steep UV spectral index (β = -2.4 ± 0.1), and extreme rest-frame equivalent width of Lyα. Two different gravitational lens models predict high magnification (μ ∼ 10-16) for the two detected counterimages, separated by 7″, while a predicted third counterimage (μ ∼ 3-4) is undetected. We find differences of ∼50% in magnification between the two lens models, quantifying our current systematic uncertainties. Integral field spectroscopy of A370-L57 with MUSE shows a narrow (FWHM = 204 ± 10 km s) and asymmetric Lyα profile with an integrated luminosity L(Lyα) ∼ 10 erg s. The morphology in the Hubble Space Telescope bands comprises a compact clump (r < 100 pc) that dominates the Lyα and continuum emission and several fainter clumps at projected distances ≲1 kpc that coincide with an extension of the Lyα emission in the SHARDS F823W17 and MUSE observations. The latter could be part of the same galaxy or an interacting companion. We find no evidence of a contribution from active galactic nuclei to the Lyα emission. Fitting of the spectral energy distribution with stellar population models favors a very young (t < 10 Myr), low-mass (), and metal-poor (Z ≲ 4 10) stellar population. Its modest star formation rate (SFR ∼ 1.0 yr) implies high specific SFR (sSFR ∼ 2.5 10 yr) and SFR density ( yr kpc). The properties of A370-L57 make it a good representative of the population of galaxies responsible for cosmic reionization., A.H.-C. and P.G.P.-G. acknowledge funding by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under grants AYA2012-31277, AYA2015-70815-ERC, and AYA2015-63650-P. J.M.D. acknowledges support of the projects AYA2015-64508-P (MINECO/FEDER, UE), AYA2012-39475-C02-01, and the consolider project CSD2010-00064 funded by MINECO. D.J.L. and J.R. acknowledge support from the ERC starting grant 336736-CALENDS. R.A.M. acknowledges support by the Swiss National Science Foundation. A.A.-H. acknowledges funding by the MINECO grant AYA2015-64346-C2-1-P, which is partly funded by the FEDER program. H.D.S. acknowledges funding from the program ANR-T-ERC ASTROBRAIN. P.S. acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant P2GEP2_165426. J.M.R.E. acknowledges funding by the MINECO grant AYA2015-70498-C2-1-R. H.D. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish 2014 Ramón y Cajal program MINECO RYC-2014-15686.

We use a semi-empirical model to reproduce the 0.1-10um spectral energy distribution (SED) of a sample of 85 luminous quasars. In the model, the continuum emission from the accretion disk as well as the nebular lines are represented by a single empirical template (disk), where differences in the optical spectral index are reproduced by varying the amount of extinction. The near- and mid-infrared emission of the AGN-heated dust is modelled as the combination of two black-bodies (dust). The model fitting shows that the disk and dust components are remarkably uniform among individual quasars, with differences in the observed SED largely accounted for by varying levels of obscuration in the disk as well as differences in the relative luminosity of the disk and dust components. By combining the disk-subtracted SEDs of the 85 quasars, we generate a template for the 1-10um emission of the AGN-heated dust. Additionally, we use a sample of local Seyfert 1 galaxies with full spectroscopic coverage in the 0.37um to 39um range to demonstrate a method for stitching together spectral segments obtained with different PSF and extraction apertures. We show that the disk and dust templates obtained from luminous quasars also reproduce the optical-to-mid-infrared spectra of local Seyfert 1s when the contribution from the host galaxy is properly subtracted., 8 pages, 4 figures; accepted for publication in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, Research Topic "Quasars at all cosmic epochs"; proceedings of the conference "Quasars at all cosmic epochs", held in Padova, April 2-7, 2017

We present new calculations of the Clumpy AGN Tori in a 3D geometry (CAT3D) clumpytorus models, which now include a more physical dust sublimation model as well as activegalactic nucleus (AGN) anisotropic emission. These new models allow graphite grains topersist at temperatures higher than the silicate dust sublimation temperature. This producesstronger near-infrared emission and bluer mid-infrared (MIR) spectral slopes. We make astatistical comparison of the CAT3D model MIR predictions with a compilation of subarcsecondresolution ground-based MIR spectroscopy of 52 nearby Seyfert galaxies (mediandistance of 36 Mpc) and 10 quasars. We focus on the AGN MIR spectral index aMIR andthe strength of the 9.7 μm silicate feature S. As with other clumpy torus models, the newCAT3Dmodels do not reproduce the Seyfert galaxies with deep silicate absorption (S, We acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Plan Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica under grant AYA2015-64346-C2-1-P (JG-G and AA-H), which was partly funded by the FEDER programme. AH-C acknowledges funding by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under grant AYA2015-63650-P. JG-G acknowledges financial support from the Universidad de Cantabria through the Programa de Personal Investigador en Formacion Predoctoral de la Universidad de Cantabria. AA-H is also partly funded by CSIC/PIE grant 201650E036. SFH acknowledges support from the Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship within the Seventh European Community Framework Programme (PIIF-GA-2013-623804) and the European Research Council under Horizon 2020 grant ERC-2015-StG-677117. CRA acknowledges the Ramon y Cajal Program of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through project RYC-2014-15779 and the Spanish Plan Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofisíica under grant AYA2016-76682-C3-2-P. OG-M acknowledges support from PAPIIT IA100516. CP acknowledges support from the NSF grant number 1616828. MK acknowledges support from JSPS under grant 16H05731.

We present deep dual-band 5.0 and 8.4GHz European VLBI Network (EVN) observations of NGC1614, a local luminous infrared galaxy with a powerful circumnuclear starburst ring, and whose nuclear engine origin is still controversial. We aim at detecting and characterizing compact radio structures both in the nuclear region and in the circumnuclear ring. We do not find any compact source in the central 200pc region, setting a very tight 5 sigma upper limit of $3.7\times10^{36}$erg s$^{-1}$ and $5.8\times10^{36}$erg s$^{-1}$, at 5.0 and 8.4GHz, respectively. However, we report a clear detection at both frequencies of a compact structure in the circumnuclear ring, 190pc to the north of the nucleus, whose luminosity and spectral index are compatible with a core-collapse supernova, giving support to the high star formation rate in the ring. Our result favors the pure starburst scenario, even for the nucleus of NGC1614, and shows the importance of radio VLBI observations when dealing with the obscured environments of dusty galaxies., Comment: Letter accepted for publication in MNRAS. 5 pages, 2 figures

Dedicated searches generally find a decreasing fraction of obscured active galactic nuclei (AGN) with increasing AGN luminosity. This has often been interpreted as evidence for a decrease of the covering factor of the AGN torus with increasing luminosity, the so-called receding torus models. Using a complete flux-limited X-ray selected sample of 199 AGN, from the Bright Ultra-hard XMM-Newton Survey, we determine the intrinsic fraction of optical type-2 AGN at 0.05 ≤ z ≤ 1 as a function of rest-frame 2-10 keV X-ray luminosity from 10 to 10 erg s. We use the distributions of covering factors of AGN tori derived from CLUMPY torus models. Since these distributions combined over the total AGN population need to match the intrinsic type-2 AGN fraction, we reveal a population of X-ray undetected objects with high-covering factor tori, which are increasingly numerous at higher AGN luminosities. When these >missing> objects are included, we find that Compton-thick AGN account at most for 37 % of the total population. The intrinsic type-2 AGN fraction is 58±4% and has a weak, nonsignificant (less than 2δ) luminosity dependence. This contradicts the results generally reported by AGN surveys and the expectations from receding torus models. Our findings imply that the majority of luminous rapidly accreting supermassive black holes at z ≤ 1 reside in highly obscured nuclear environments, but most of them are so deeply embedded that they have so far escaped detection in X-rays in, S.M. acknowledges financial support through grant AYA2016-76730-P. (MINECO/FEDER). F.J.C., X.B., and A.A.-H. acknowledge financial support through grant AYA2015-64346-C2-1-P (MINECO/FEDER). A.H.-C. acknowledges financial support through grants AYA2015- 70815-ERC and AYA2012-31277. C.R.A. acknowledges financial support through grant AYA2016-76682-C3-2-P and the Ramón y Cajal Program through project RYC-2014-15779 (MINECO). T.M. is supported by CONACyT Grants 179662, 252531 and UNAM-DGAPA PAPIIT IN104216.

We present mid-infrared (MIR, 7.5-13.5 $��$m) imaging and spectroscopy observations obtained with the CanariCam (CC) instrument on the 10.4m Gran Telescopio CANARIAS for a sample of 20 nearby, MIR bright and X-ray luminous QSOs. We find that for the majority of QSOs the MIR emission is unresolved at angular scales nearly 0.3 arcsec, corresponding to physical scales $ 2$ per cent) and low geometrical covering factors ($f_{2}, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Pereira-Santaella, M. et. al., We present the first detection of the ortho-H2O 423 - 330 transition at 448 GHz in space. We observed this transition in the local (z = 0.010) luminous infrared (IR) galaxy ESO 320-G030 (IRAS F11506-3851) using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The water 423 - 330 emission, which originates in the highly obscured nucleus of this galaxy, is spatially resolved over a region of ~65 pc in diameter and shows a regular rotation pattern compatible with the global molecular and ionized gas kinematics. The line profile is symmetric and well fitted by a Gaussian with an integrated flux of 37.0 ± 0.7 Jy km s-1. Models predict this water transition as a potential collisionally excited maser transition. On the contrary, in this galaxy, we find that the 423 - 330 emission is primarily excited by the intense far-IR radiation field present in its nucleus. According to our modeling, this transition is a probe of deeply buried galaxy nuclei thanks to the high dust optical depths (τ100μm> 1, NH> 1024 cm-2) required to efficiently excite it. © ESO, 2017., M.P.S. acknowledges support from STFC through grant ST/N000919/1, the John Fell Oxford University Press (OUP) Research Fund and the University of Oxford. E.G.S., A.U., S.G.B., J.M.P., L.C., A.A.H., S.A., S.C., and F.R.V. acknowledge financial support by the Spanish MEC under grants ESP2015-65597-C4-1-R, AYA2012-32295, ESP2015-68694, AYA2013-42227-P and AYA2015-64346-C2-1-P, which is partly funded by the FEDER programme. E.G.A. a Research Associate at the Harvard-Smithsonian CfA and acknowledges support by NASA grant ADAP NNX15AE56G.

We investigate the evolutionary connection between local IR-bright galaxies ($\log L_{\rm IR}\ge 11.4\,L_\odot$) and quasars. We use high angular resolution ($\sim$ 0.3-0.4 arcsec $\sim$ few hundred parsecs) $8-13\,\mu$m ground-based spectroscopy to disentangle the AGN mid-IR properties from those of star formation. The comparison between the nuclear $11.3\,\mu$m PAH feature emission and that measured with Spitzer/IRS indicates that the star formation is extended over a few kpc in the IR-bright galaxies. The AGN contribution to the total IR luminosity of IR-bright galaxies is lower than in quasars. Although the dust distribution is predicted to change as IR-bright galaxies evolve to IR-bright quasars and then to optical quasars, we show that the AGN mid-IR emission of all the quasars in our sample is not significantly different. In contrast, the nuclear emission of IR-bright galaxies with low AGN contributions appears more heavily embedded in dust although there is no clear trend with the interaction stage or projected nuclear separation. This suggests that the changes in the distribution of the nuclear obscuring material may be taking place rapidly and at different interaction stages washing out the evidence of an evolutionary path. When compared to normal AGN, the nuclear star formation activity of quasars appears to be dimming whereas it is enhanced in some IR-bright nuclei, suggesting that the latter are in an earlier star-formation dominated phase., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We have observed 54 nearby spiral galaxies with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on the Hubble Space Telescope to obtain optical long-slit spectra of nuclear gas disks and STIS optical (~R band) images of the central 5'' × 5'' of the galaxies. These spectra are being used to determine the velocity field of nuclear disks and hence to detect the presence of central massive black holes. Here we present the spectra for the successful observations. Dust obscuration can be significant at optical wavelengths, and so we also combine the STIS images with archival Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer H-band images to produce color maps to investigate the morphology of gas and dust in the central regions. We find a great variety in the different morphologies, from smooth distributions to well-defined nuclear spirals and dust lanes.

This work is based on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under NASA contract 1407.-- El Pdf del artículo es la versión pre-print: arXiv:1109.1372v1, We quantify the active galactic nucleus (AGN) contribution to the mid-infrared (mid-IR) and the total infrared (IR, 8-1000micron) emission in a complete volume-limited sample of 53 local luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs). We decompose the Spitzer Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) low-resolution 5-38micron spectra of the LIRGs into AGN and starburst components using clumpy torus models and star-forming galaxy templates, respectively. We find that 50% (25/50) of local LIRGs have an AGN component detected with this method. There is good agreement between these AGN detections through mid-IR spectral decomposition and other AGN indicators, such as the optical spectral class, mid-IR spectral features and X-ray properties. Taking all the AGN indicators together, the AGN detection rate in the individual nuclei of LIRGs is ~62%. The derived AGN bolometric luminosities are in the range L_bol(AGN)=0.4 -50x10^{43} erg/s. The AGN bolometric contribution to the IR luminosities of the galaxies is generally small, with 70% of LIRGs having L_bol(AGN)/L_IR 0.25. From the comparison of our results with literature results of ultraluminous infrared galaxies, we confirm that in the local universe the AGN bolometric contribution to the IR luminosity increases with the IR luminosity of the galaxy/system. If we add up the AGN bolometric luminosities we find that AGNs only account for 5%^{+8%}_{-3%} of the total IR luminosity produced by local LIRGs (with and without AGN detections). This proves that the bulk of the IR luminosity of local LIRGs is due to star formation activity. Taking the newly determined IR luminosity density of LIRGs in the local universe, we then estimate an AGN IR luminosity density of Omega_IR(AGN) = 3x10^5 L_sun Mpc^{-3}$ in LIRGs., A.A.H and M.P.-S. acknowledge support from the Spanish Plan Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica under grants AYA2009-05705-E and AYA2010-21161-C02-1. M.P.-S. acknowledges support from the CSIC under grant JAE-Predoc-2007.

We present high-resolution mid-infrared (MIR) imaging, nuclear spectral energy distributions (SEDs), and archival Spitzer spectra for 22 low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGNs; L bol ≲ 10 42 erg s -1). Infrared (IR) observations may advance our understanding of the accretion flows in LLAGNs, the fate of the obscuring torus at low accretion rates, and, perhaps, the star formation histories of these objects. However, while comprehensively studied in higher-luminosity Seyferts and quasars, the nuclear IR properties of LLAGNs have not yet been well determined. We separate the present LLAGN sample into three categories depending on their Eddington ratio and radio emission, finding different IR characteristics for each class. (1) At the low-luminosity, low-Eddington-ratio (log L bol/L Edd < -4.6) end of the sample, we identify >host- dominated> galaxies with strong polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon bands that may indicate active (circum-)nuclear star formation. (2) Some very radio-loud objects are also present at these low Eddington ratios. The IR emission in these nuclei is dominated by synchrotron radiation, and some are likely to be unobscured type 2 AGNs that genuinely lack a broad-line region. (3) At higher Eddington ratios, strong, compact nuclear sources are visible in the MIR images. The nuclear SEDs of these galaxies are diverse; some resemble typical Seyfert nuclei, while others lack a well-defined MIR >dust bump.> Strong silicate emission is present in many of these objects. We speculate that this, together with high ratios of silicate strength to hydrogen column density, could suggest optically thin dust and low dust-to-gas ratios, in accordance with model predictions that LLAGNs do not host a Seyfert-like obscuring torus. We anticipate that detailed modeling of the new data and SEDs in terms of accretion disk, jet, radiatively inefficient accretion flow, and torus components will provide further insights into the nuclear structures and processes of LLAGNs. © © 2012. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.., A.A.-H. and L.C. acknowledge support from the Spanish Plan Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica under grants AYA2009-05705-E and AYA2010-21161-C02-1. C.R.A. acknowledges the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) through project Consolider Ingenio 2010 Program grant CSD2006-00070

Garcia-Burillo, S. et. al., We used the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) to map the emission of the CO(6-5) molecular line and the 432 μm continuum emission from the 300 pc sized circumnuclear disk (CND) of the nearby Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 1068 with a spatial resolution of ∼4 pc. These observations spatially resolve the CND and, for the first time, image the dust emission, the molecular gas distribution, and the kinematics from a 7-10 pc diameter disk that represents the submillimeter counterpart of the putative torus of NGC 1068. We fitted the nuclear spectral energy distribution of the torus using ALMA and near- and mid-infrared (NIR/MIR) data with CLUMPY torus models. The mass and radius of the best-fit solution for the torus are both consistent with the values derived from the ALMA data alone: and R torus = 3.5 ± 0.5 pc. The dynamics of the molecular gas in the torus show strong non-circular motions and enhanced turbulence superposed on a surprisingly slow rotation pattern of the disk. By contrast with the nearly edge-on orientation of the H2O megamaser disk, we found evidence suggesting that the molecular torus is less inclined (i = 34°-66°) at larger radii. The lopsided morphology and complex kinematics of the torus could be the signature of the Papaloizou-Pringle instability, long predicted to likely drive the dynamical evolution of active galactic nuclei tori. © 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved., S.G.B., A.U., L.C., I.M., and A.F. acknowledge support from Spanish grants AYA2012-32295 and AYA2013-42227-P

The observational study of star-formation laws is paramount to disentangling the physical processes at work on local and global scales in galaxies. To this aim we have expanded the sample of extreme starbursts, represented by local LIRGs and ULIRGs, with high-quality data obtained in the 1-0 line of HCN. The analysis of the new data shows that the star-formation efficiency of the dense molecular gas, derived from the FIR/HCN luminosity ratio, is a factor 3-4 higher in extreme starbursts compared to normal galaxies. We find a duality in the Kennicutt-Schmidt laws that is enhanced if we account for the different conversion factor for HCN (alpha_HCN) in extreme starbursts and correct for the unobscured star-formation rate in normal galaxies. We find that it is possible to fit the observed differences in the FIR/HCN ratios between normal galaxies and LIRGs/ULIRGs with a common constant star-formation rate per free-fall time (SFR_ff) if we assume that HCN densities are ~1-2 orders of magnitude higher in LIRGs/ULIRGs, and provided that SFR_ ff~0.005-0.01 and/or if alpha_HCN is a factor of a few lower than our favored values., 4 pages, 3 figures, Proceedings IAU symposium No. 292: Molecular gas, dust and star formation in galaxies, ed. by Tony Wong and Juergen Ott

Numerical simulations of minor mergers, typically having mass ratios greater than 3:1, predict little enhancement in the global star formation activity. However, these models also predict that the satellite galaxy is more susceptible to the effects of the interaction than the primary. We use optical integral field spectroscopy and deep optical imaging to study the NGC7771+NGC7770 interacting system (~10:1 stellar mass ratio) to test these predictions. We find that the satellite galaxy NGC7770 is currently experiencing a galaxy-wide starburst with most of the optical light being from young and post-starburst stellar populations(

We used Spitzer/Infrared Spectrograph spectroscopic data on 426 galaxies including quasars, Seyferts, LINERs, and Hii galaxies to investigate the relationship among the mid-IR emission lines. There is a tight linear correlation between the [Ne v]14.3 μm and 24.3 μm (97.1 eV) and the [Oiv]25.9 μm (54.9 eV) high-ionization emission lines. The correlation also holds for these high-ionization emission lines and the [Ne iii]15.56 μm (41 eV) emission line, although only for active galaxies. We used these correlations to calculate the [Ne iii] excess due to star formation in Seyfert galaxies. We also estimated the [Oiv] luminosity due to star formation in active galaxies and determined that it dominates the [Oiv] emission only if the contribution of the active nucleus to the total luminosity is below 5%. We find that the active galactic nucleus dominates the [Oiv] emission in most Seyfert galaxies, whereas star formation adequately explains the observed [Oiv] emission in optically classified Hii galaxies. Finally, we computed photoionization models to determine the physical conditions of the narrow-line region where these high-ionization lines originate. The estimated ionization parameter range is -2.8 < log U < -2.5 and the total hydrogen column density range is 20 < log nH (cm-2) < 21. © 2010 The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved., Support from the CSIC under grant JAE-Predoc-2007. Support from the Spanish Plan Nacional del Espacio under grant ESP2007-65475-C02-01. This work was partially supported by Caltech/JPL through contract 1255094 to the University of Arizona. Support for this work from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through Proyecto Intramural Especial under grant number 200850I003 and from Plan Nacional de Astronomia y Astrofisica under grant number AYA2009-05705-E. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This research also used the VizieR catalog Service (Ochsenbein et al. 2000).