No Arabic abstract
We present mid-infrared spectro-imaging (5 - 16 microns) observations of the infrared luminous interacting system Arp 299 (=Mrk171 =IC694+NGC3690) obtained with the ISOCAM instrument aboard ISO. Our observations show that nearly 40% of the total emission at 7 and 15 microns is diffuse, originating from the interacting disks of the galaxies. Moreover, they indicate the presence of large amounts of hot dust in the main infrared sources of the system and large extinctions toward the nuclei. While the observed spectra have an overall similar shape, mainly composed of Unidentified Infrared Bands (UIB) in the short wavelength domain, a strong continuum at ~ 13 microns and a deep silicate absorption band at 10 microns, their differences reveal the varying physical conditions of each component. For each source, the spectral energy distribution (SED) can be reproduced by a linear combination of a UIB canonical spectral template and a hot dust continuum due to a 230-300 K black body, after independently applying an extinction correction to both of them. We find that the UIB extinction does not vary much throughout the system (A_V ~ 5 mag) suggesting that most UIBs originate from less enshrouded regions. IC694 appears to dominate the infrared emission of the system and our observations support the interpretation of a deeply embedded nuclear starburst located behind an absorption of about 40 mag. The central region of NGC3690 displays a hard radiation field characterized by a [NeIII]/[NeII] ratio > 1.8. It also hosts a strong continuum from 5 to 16 microns which can be explained as thermal emission from a deeply embedded (A_V ~ 60 mag) compact source, consistent with the mid-infrared signature of an active galactic nucleus (AGN), and in agreement with recent X-ray findings.
We report results of a Chandra observation of the X-ray luminous star-forming galaxy Arp299 (NGC3690/IC694). We detect 18 discrete X-ray sources with luminosities above ~10^39 ergs (0.5-8.0 keV band), which contribute ~40% of the total galactic emission in this band. The remaining emission is associated with a diffuse component spatially coincident with regions of widespread star-formation. We detect X-ray emission from both nuclei. One of the discrete sources within the complex nuclear region of NGC 3690 is found to have a very hard spectrum and therefore we associate it with the origin of the AGN-like spectrum that has also been detected at high X-ray energies using Beppo-SAX.
Understanding the heating and cooling mechanisms in nearby (Ultra) luminous infrared galaxies can give us insight into the driving mechanisms in their more distant counterparts. Molecular emission lines play a crucial role in cooling excited gas, and recently, with Herschel Space Observatory we have been able to observe the rich molecular spectrum. CO is the most abundant and one of the brightest molecules in the Herschel wavelength range. CO transitions are observed with Herschel, and together, these lines trace the excitation of CO. We study Arp 299, a colliding galaxy group, with one component harboring an AGN and two more undergoing intense star formation. For Arp 299 A, we present PACS spectrometer observations of high-J CO lines up to J=20-19 and JCMT observations of $^{13}$CO and HCN to discern between UV heating and alternative heating mechanisms. There is an immediately noticeable difference in the spectra of Arp 299 A and Arp 299 B+C, with source A having brighter high-J CO transitions. This is reflected in their respective spectral energy line distributions. We find that photon-dominated regions (PDRs) are unlikely to heat all the gas since a very extreme PDR is necessary to fit the high-J CO lines. In addition, this extreme PDR does not fit the HCN observations, and the dust spectral energy distribution shows that there is not enough hot dust to match the amount expected from such an extreme PDR. Therefore, we determine that the high-J CO and HCN transitions are heated by an additional mechanism, namely cosmic ray heating, mechanical heating, or X-ray heating. We find that mechanical heating, in combination with UV heating, is the only mechanism that fits all molecular transitions. We also constrain the molecular gas mass of Arp 299 A to 3e9 Msun and find that we need 4% of the total heating to be mechanical heating, with the rest UV heating.
We present an investigation of the dust-enshrouded activity in a sample of X-ray selected clusters drawn from the XMM-LSS survey in the redshift range z ~ 0.05 - 1.05. By taking advantage of the contiguous mid-IR coverage of the XMM-LSS field by the Spitzer SWIRE legacy survey, we examined the distribution and number density of mid-IR bright sources out to the cluster periphery and its dependence on redshift to probe the obscured side of the Butcher-Oemler effect. Toward intermediate redshift clusters we identified surprisingly high numbers of bright 24um sources, whose photometric redshifts are compatible with cluster membership. The stacked surface density profile of 24um sources in clusters within four redshift bins gives evidence for an excess of bright mid-IR sources at redshift z $geq$ 0.4 at cluster-centric radii ~ 200 - 500 kpc. Some traces of excess appear to be present at larger radii as well.
Star-forming galaxies are huge reservoirs of cosmic rays (CRs) and these CRs convert a significant fraction of their energy into $gamma$-rays by colliding with the interstellar medium (ISM). Several nearby star-forming galaxies have been detected in GeV-TeV $gamma$-rays. It is also found that the $gamma$-ray luminosities in 0.1-100 GeV correlate well with indicators of star formation rates of the galaxies, such as the total infrared (IR) luminosity. In this paper, we report a systematic search for possible $gamma$-ray emission from galaxies in the IRAS Revised Bright Galaxies Sample, using 11.4 years of $gamma$-ray data taken by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). Two new galaxies, M33 and Arp 299, are detected significantly. The two galaxies are consistent with the empirical correlation between the $gamma$-ray luminosity and total infrared luminosity, suggesting that their $gamma$-ray emissions should mainly originate from CRs interacting with ISM. Nevertheless, there is a tentative evidence that the flux of the $gamma$-ray emission from Arp~299 is variable. If the variability is true, part of the emission from Arp 299 should originate from the obscured AGN in this interacting galaxy system. In addition, we find that the $gamma$-ray excess from M33 is located at the northeast region of the galaxy, where a supergiant H II region, NGC604, resides. This indicates that some bright star-forming regions in spiral galaxies could play a dominant role in the galaxy in producing $gamma$-ray emission.
We present partial results from our monitoring of the nuclear region of the starburst galaxy IC 694 (=Arp 299-A) at radio wavelengths, aimed at discovering recently exploded CCSNe, as well as to determine their rate of explosion, which carries crucial information on star formation rates and starburst scenarios at work. Two epochs of eEVN observations at 5.0 GHz, taken in 2008, revealed the presence of a rich cluster of compact radio emitting sources in the central 150 pc of the nuclear starburst in Arp 299A. The large brightness temperatures observed for the compact sources indicate a non-thermal origin for the observed radio emission, implying that most, if not all, of those sources were young radio supernovae (RSNe) and supernova remnants (SNRs). More recently, contemporaneous EVN observations at 1.7 and 5.0 GHz taken in 2009 have allowed us to shed light on the compact radio emission of the parsec-scale structure in the nucleus of Arp 299-A. Namely, our EVN observations have shown that one of the compact VLBI sources, A1, previously detected at 5.0 GHz, has a flat spectrum between 1.7 and 5.0 GHz and is the brightest source at both frequencies. The morphology, radio luminosity, spectral index and ratio of radio-to-X-ray emission of the A1-A5 region allowed us to identify A1-A5 with long-sought AGN in Arp 299-A. This finding may suggest that both starburst and AGN are frequently associated phenomena in mergers. Finally, we also note that component A0, identified as a young RSN, exploded at the mere distance of two parsecs from the putative AGN in Arp 299-A, which makes this supernova one of the closest to a central supermassive black hole ever detected.