Daily Image
01-03-2013
Tracing the extreme interplay between radio jets and the ISM in IC 5063
| Submitter: | Raffaella Morganti |
| Description: | The radio-loud Seyfert galaxy IC5063 (z = 0.0110) is an old friend of us. It represents one of the best cases we have found of fast jet-driven HI outflow (also seen in ionized gas) which is not located at the nucleus but at the site of a radio-bright feature about 0.5 kpc from the nucleus. It is one of the best cases where there is evidence that the outflow is driven by the interaction of the ISM with the radio jet. Our latest observations make this object even more interesting. Using the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) we have found that also an outflow of molecular gas is present in this object. As shown in the figure, in addition to the emission of the large-scale CO disk, a prominent blueshifted wing is observed in the CO(2-1) spectrum. It is likely that the blueshifted part of the profile is from molecular gas associated with the outflow also seen in HI and ionized gas. The outflow of molecular gas is characterized by an H_2 mass between 2.25 +/- 0.70 x 10^7 Msun and 1.29+/- 0.40 x 10^8 Msun and a mass outflow rate between 22 and 129 Msun/yr. These numbers confirm that the molecular gas may be the dominant component of outflows driven by the nuclear activity. However, we also found that this high mass outflow rate cannot easily be supported for a long time, suggesting that the gas outflow in IC5063 happens in bursts and is in a particularly strong phase at present. Owing to its proximity, IC5063 serves as an excellent laboratory for understanding the impact of radio jets on the gas-rich inter-stellar medium and indeed we have obtained ALMA time to follow up this finding and, hopefully, locate the site of the outflow. This result is presented in a paper by R. Morganti, W. Frieswijk, R. Oonk, T. Oosterloo and C. Tadhunter that will appear shortly in Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters (see also http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.2236 ). |
| Copyright: | ASTRON |
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