We present spectra of the nuclear regions of 50 nearby (D = 1 - 92 Mpc, median = 20 Mpc) galaxies of morphological types E to Sm. The spectra, obtained with the Gemini Near-IR Spectrograph on the Gemini North telescope, cover a wavelength range of ap
proximately 0.85-2.5 microns at R~1300--1800. There is evidence that most of the galaxies host an active galactic nucleus (AGN), but the range of AGN luminosities (log (L2-10 keV [erg/s]) = 37.0-43.2) in the sample means that the spectra display a wide variety of features. Some nuclei, especially the Seyferts, exhibit a rich emission-line spectrum. Other objects, in particular the type 2 Low Ionisation Nuclear Emission Region galaxies, show just a few, weak emission lines, allowing a detailed view of the underlying stellar population. These spectra display numerous absorption features sensitive to the stellar initial mass function, as well as molecular bands arising in cool stars, and many other atomic absorption lines. We compare the spectra of subsets of galaxies known to be characterised by intermediate-age and old stellar populations, and find clear differences in their absorption lines and continuum shapes. We also examine the effect of atmospheric water vapor on the signal-to-noise ratio achieved in regions between the conventional NIR atmospheric windows, of potential interest to those planning observations of redshifted emission lines or other features affected by telluric H2O. Further exploitation of this data set is in progress, and the reduced spectra and data reduction tools are made available to the community.
We present adaptive optics-assisted J- and K-band integral field spectroscopy of the inner 300 x 300 pc of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC1068. The data were obtained with the Gemini NIFS integral field unit spectrometer, which provided us with high-spatial
and -spectral resolution sampling. The wavelength range covered by the observations allowed us to study the [CaVIII], [SiVI], [SiVII], [AlIX] and [SIX] coronal-line (CL) emission, covering ionization potentials up to 328 eV. The observations reveal very rich and complex structures, both in terms of velocity fields and emission-line ratios. The CL emission is elongated along the NE-SW direction, with the stronger emission preferentially localized to the NE of the nucleus. CLs are emitted by gas covering a wide range of velocities, with maximum blueshifts/redshifts of ~ -1600/1000 km/s. There is a trend for the gas located on the NE side of the nucleus to be blueshifted while the gas located towards the SW is redshifted. The morphology and the kinematics of the near-infrared CLs are in very good agreement with the ones displayed by low-ionization lines and optical CLs, suggesting a common origin. The line flux distributions, velocity maps, ionization structure (traced by the [SiVII]/[SiVI] emission-line ratio) and low ionization emission-line ratios (i.e., [FeII]/Pabeta and [FeII]/[PII]) suggest that the radio jet plays an important role in the structure of the coronal line region of this object, and possibly in its kinematics.
(Abridge) The relationship between coronal line (CL) emission and nuclear activity in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is analyzed, for the first time, based on NIR spectra. The 8 CLs studied, of Si, S, Fe, Al and Ca elements and corresponding to ioniza
tion potentials (IP) in the range 125-450 eV, are detected in 67% (36 AGNs) of the sample. The four most frequent CLs - [SiVI] 19630AA, [SVIII] 9913AA, [SIX] 12520AA and [SiX] 14320AA, - display a narrow range in luminosity, with most lines located in the interval logL 39-40 erg/s. We found that the non-detection is largely associated with either a lost of spatial resolution or increasing object distance. Yet, there are AGNs where the lack of CLs may be genuine and reflect an AGN ionising continuum lacking photons below a few keV. The FWHM of the lines profiles increases with increasing IP up to energies around 300 eV, where a maximum in the FWHM is reached. For higher IP lines, the FWHM remains nearly constant or decreases with increasing IP. We ascribe this effect to an increasing density environment as we approach to the innermost regions of the AGN, where densities above the critical density of the CLs with IP larger than 300 eV are reached. This sets a strict range limit for the density in the boundary region between the narrow and the broad region of 10^8 - 10^9 cm^{-3}. A relationship between the luminosity of the coronal lines and that of the soft and hard X-ray emission and the soft X-ray photon index is observed: the coronal emission becomes stronger with both increasing x-ray emission (soft and hard) and steeper X-ray photon index. Thus, photoionization appears as the dominant excitation mechanism. These trends hold when considering Type 1 sources only; they get weaker or vanish when including Type 2 sources, very likely because the X-ray emission measured in the later is not the intrinsic ionising continuum.
We report moderate resolution 3-5 micron spectroscopy of the nucleus of NGC 1068 obtained at 0.3 arcsec (20 pc) resolution with the spectrograph slit aligned approximately along the ionization cones of the AGN. The deconvolved FWHM of the nuclear con
tinuum source in this direction is 0.3 arcsec. Four coronal lines of widely different excitations were detected; the intensity of each peaks near radio knot C, approximately 0.3 arcsec north of the infrared continuum peak, where the radio jet changes direction. Together with the broadened line profiles observed near that location, this suggests that shock-ionization is the dominant excitation mechanism of the coronal lines. The depth of the 3.4 micron hydrocarbon absorption is maximum at and just south of the continuum peak, similar to the 10 micron silicate absorption. That and the similar and rapid variations of the optical depths of both features across the nucleus suggest that substantial portions of both arise in a dusty environment just in front of the continuum source(s). A new and tighter limit is set on the column density of CO. Although clumpy models of the dust screen might explain the shallowness of the silicate feature, the presence of the 3.4 micron feature and the absence of CO are strongly reminiscent of Galactic diffuse cloud environments and a consistent explanation for them and the observed silicate feature is found if all three phenomena occur in such an environment, existing as close as 10 pc from the central engine.
