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Register a new userThe Survey of Nearby Nuclei with STIS (SUNNS):Emission-Line Nuclei at Hubble Space Telescope Resolution
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Joseph C. Shields
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We present results from a program of optical spectroscopy for 23 nearby galaxy emission-line nuclei. This investigation takes advantage of the spatial resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope to study the structure and energetics of the central 10 - 20 pc, and the resulting data have value for quantifying central black hole masses, star formation histories, and nebular properties. This paper provides a description of the experimental design, and new findings from the study of emission lines. The sample targets span a range of nebular spectroscopic class, from HII to Seyfert nuclei. The line ratios indicative of nebular ionization show only modest variations over order-of-magnitude differences in radius, and demonstrate in a systematic way that geometrical dilution of the radiation field from a central source cannot be assumed as a primary driver of ionization structure. Comparisons between large- and small-aperture measurements for the HII/LINER transition objects provide a new test that challenges conventional wisdom concerning the composite nature of these systems. We also list a number of other quantitative results that are of interest for understanding galaxy nuclei, including (1) the spatial distribution/degree of concentration of H-alpha emission as a function of nebular type; (2) the radial variation in electron density as a function of nebular type; and (3) quantitative broad H-alpha estimates obtained at a second epoch for these low-luminosity nuclei. The resulting measurements provide a new basis for comparing the nuclei of other galaxies with that of the Milky Way. We find that the Galactic Center is representative across a wide span of properties as a low-luminosity emission-line nucleus.
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We present the results of the analysis of a set of medium resolution spectra, obtained by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on board the Hubble Space Telescope, of the emission line gas present in the nuclei of a complete sample of 21 nearby, early-type galaxies with radio jets (the UGC FR-I Sample). For each galaxy nucleus we present spectroscopic data in the region of H-alpha and the dervived kinematics. We find that in 67% of the nuclei the gas appears to be rotating and, with one exception, the cases where rotation is not seen are either face on or have complex central morphologies. We find that in 62% of the nuclei the fit to the central spectrum is improved by the inclusion of a broad component. The broad components have a mean velocity dispersion of 1349 +/- 345 kms and are redshifted from the narrow line components (assuming an origin in H-alpha) by 486 +/- 443 kms.
(Abridged) We present STIS observations of 14 nearby low-luminosity active galactic nuclei, including 13 LINERs and 1 Seyfert, taken at multiple parallel slit positions centered on the galaxy nuclei and covering the H-alpha spectral region. For each galaxy, we measure the emission-line velocities, line widths, and strengths, to map out the inner narrow-line region structure. There is a wide diversity among the velocity fields: in a few galaxies the gas is clearly in disk-like rotation, while in other galaxies the gas kinematics appear chaotic or are dominated by radial flows with multiple velocity components. The [S II] line ratio indicates a radial stratification in gas density, with a sharp increase within the inner 10-20 pc, in the majority of the Type 1 objects. We examine how the [N II] 6583 line width varies as a function of aperture size over a range of spatial scales, extending from scales comparable to the black holes sphere of influence to scales dominated by the host galaxys bulge. For most galaxies in the sample, we find that the emission-line velocity dispersion is largest within the black holes gravitational sphere of influence, and decreases with increasing aperture size toward values similar to the bulge stellar velocity dispersion measured within ground-based apertures. Future dynamical modeling in order to determine black hole masses for a few objects in this sample may be worthwhile, although disorganized motion will limit the accuracy of the mass measurements.
The PHANGS program is building the first dataset to enable the multi-phase, multi-scale study of star formation across the nearby spiral galaxy population. This effort is enabled by large Treasury programs with ALMA, VLT/MUSE, and HST, with which we have obtained CO(2-1) imaging, optical spectroscopic mapping, and high resolution UV-optical imaging, respectively. Here, we present PHANGS-HST, which is obtaining five band NUV-U-B-V-I imaging of the disks of 38 spiral galaxies at distances of 4-23 Mpc, and parallel V and I band imaging of their halos, to provide a census of tens of thousands of compact star clusters and associations. The combination of HST, ALMA, and VLT/MUSE observations will yield an unprecedented joint catalog of the observed and physical properties of $sim$100,000 star clusters, associations, HII regions, and molecular clouds. With these basic units of star formation, PHANGS will systematically chart the evolutionary cycling between gas and stars, across a diversity of galactic environments found in nearby galaxies. We discuss the design of the PHANGS-HST survey, and provide an overview of the HST data processing pipeline and first results, highlighting new methods for selecting star cluster candidates, morphological classification of candidates with convolutional neural networks, and identification of stellar associations over a range of physical scales with a watershed algorithm. We describe the cross-observatory imaging, catalogs, and software products to be released, which will seed a broad range of community science, in particular, upcoming JWST study of dust embedded star formation and ISM physics.
Investigating the link between supermassive black hole and galaxy evolution requires careful measurements of the properties of the host galaxies. We perform simulations to test the reliability of a two-dimensional image-fitting technique to decompose the host galaxy and the active galactic nucleus (AGN), especially on images obtained using cameras onboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), such as the Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2, the Advanced Camera for Surveys, and the Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer. We quantify the relative importance of spatial, temporal, and color variations of the point-spread function (PSF). To estimate uncertainties in AGN-to-host decompositions, we perform extensive simulations that span a wide range in AGN-to-host galaxy luminosity contrast, signal-to-noise ratio, and host galaxy properties (size, luminosity, central concentration). We find that realistic PSF mismatches that typically afflict actual observations systematically lead to an overestimate of the flux of the host galaxy. Part of the problem is caused by the fact that the HST PSFs are undersampled. We demonstrate that this problem can be mitigated by broadening both the science and the PSF images to critical sampling without loss of information. Other practical suggestions are given for optimal analysis of HST images of AGN host galaxies.
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory (HAWC) has a wide field-of-view (FOV, $sim$2sr) and a high duty cycle ($sim$95%), which make it a powerful survey and monitoring experiment for sources of TeV gamma rays. We present a systematic survey of gamma-ray sources based on the Fermi 3FHL catalog. Sources are restricted to HAWCs FOV (Declination 19$^circ$ $pm$ 40$^circ$) and to extragalactic sources with redshift: 0.001 $<$ z $<$ 0.3. Extragalactic gamma-ray sources are dominated by active galactic nuclei (AGN) and TeV gamma-ray sources are mostly BL Lac-type blazars. The study of AGNs through high energy gamma rays has opened a new window into the extreme processes of particle acceleration in the jets of these objects and provides a way to study the photon propagation and extra-galactic background light. We have improved the HAWC sensitivity at low energies (100 GeV to 1 TeV) based on the Crab pulsar, which is an excellent calibration source for TeV gamma rays. We will present the results of searching for and monitoring nearby AGNs with the improved analysis.
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