We report the latest results of 225 GHz atmospheric opacity measurements from two arctic sites; one on high coastal terrain near the Eureka weather station, on Ellesmere Island, Canada, and the other at the Summit Station near the peak of the Greenla
nd icecap. This is a campaign to search for a site to deploy a new telescope for submillimeter Very Long Baseline Interferometry and THz astronomy in the northern hemisphere. Since 2011, we have obtained 3 months of winter data near Eureka, and about one year of data at the Summit Station. The results indicate that these sites offer a highly transparent atmosphere for observations in submillimeter wavelengths. The Summit Station is particularly excellent, and its zenith opacity at 225 GHz is statistically similar to the Atacama Large Milllimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile. In winter, the opacity at the Summit Station is even comparable to that observed at the South Pole.
Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) will be the world largest mm/submm interferometer, and currently the Early Science is ongoing, together with the commissioning and science verification (CSV). Here we present a study of the temporal
phase stability of the entire ALMA system from antennas to the correlator. We verified the temporal phase stability of ALMA using data, taken during the last two years of CSV activities. The data consist of integrations on strong point sources (i.e., bright quasars) at various frequency bands, and at various baseline lengths (up to 600 m). From the observations of strong quasars for a long time (from a few tens of minutes, up to an hour), we derived the 2-point Allan Standard Deviation after the atmospheric phase correction using the 183 GHz Water Vapor Radiometer (WVR) installed in each 12 m antenna, and confirmed that the phase stability of all the baselines reached the ALMA specification. Since we applied the WVR phase correction to all the data mentioned above, we also studied the effectiveness of the WVR phase correction at various frequencies, baseline lengths, and weather conditions. The phase stability often improves a factor of 2 - 3 after the correction, and sometimes a factor of 7 improvement can be obtained. However, the corrected data still displays an increasing phase fluctuation as a function of baseline length, suggesting that the dry component (e.g., N2 and O2) in the atmosphere also contributes the phase fluctuation in the data, although the imperfection of the WVR phase correction cannot be ruled out at this moment.
We report on atomic gas (HI) and molecular gas (as traced by CO(2-1)) redshifted absorption features toward the nuclear regions of the closest powerful radio galaxy, Centaurus A (NGC 5128). Our HI observations using the Very Long Baseline Array allow
us to discern with unprecedented sub-parsec resolution HI absorption profiles toward different positions along the 21 cm continuum jet emission in the inner 0.3 (or 5.4 pc). In addition, our CO(2-1) data obtained with the Submillimeter Array probe the bulk of the absorbing molecular gas with little contamination by emission, not possible with previous CO single-dish observations. We shed light with these data on the physical properties of the gas in the line of sight, emphasizing the still open debate about the nature of the gas that produces the broad absorption line (~55 km/s). First, the broad H I line is more prominent toward the central and brightest 21 cm continuum component than toward a region along the jet at a distance ~ 20 mas (or 0.4 pc) further from it. This suggests that the broad absorption line arises from gas located close to the nucleus, rather than from diffuse and more distant gas. Second, the different velocity components detected in the CO(2-1) absorption spectrum match well other molecular lines, such as those of HCO+(1-0), except the broad absorption line that is detected in HCO+(1-0) (and most likely related to that of the H I). Dissociation of molecular hydrogen due to the AGN seems to be efficient at distances <= 10 pc, which might contribute to the depth of the broad H I and molecular lines.
We present high resolution images of the 12CO(2-1) emission in the central 1 (1 kpc) of NGC 5128 (Centaurus A), observed using the SMA. We elucidate for the first time the distribution and kinematics of the molecular gas in this region with a resolut
ion of 6.0 x 2.4 (100 pc x 40 pc). We spatially resolve the circumnuclear molecular gas in the inner 24 x 12 (400 pc x 200 pc), which is elongated along a position angle P.A. = 155 deg and perpendicular to the radio/X-ray jet. The SE and NW components of the circumnuclear gas are connected to molecular gas found at larger radii. This gas appears as two parallel filaments at P.A. = 120 deg, which are coextensive with the long sides of the 3 kiloparsec parallelogram shape of the previously observed dust continuum, as well as ionized and pure rotational H2 lines. Spatial and kinematical asymmetries are apparent in both the circumnuclear and outer gas, suggesting non-coplanar and/or non-circular motions. We extend to inner radii (r < 200 pc) previously studied warped disk models built to reproduce the central parallelogram-shaped structure. Adopting the warped disk model we would confirm a gap in emission between the radii r = 200 - 800 pc (12 - 50), as has been suggested previously. Although this model explains this prominent feature, however, our 12CO(2-1) observations show relevant deviations from this model. Namely, the physical connection between the circumnuclear gas and that at larger radii, brighter SE and NW sides on the parallelogram-shaped feature, and an outer curvature of its long sides. Overall it resembles more closely an S-shaped morphology, a trend that is also found in other molecular species. Hence, we explore qualitatively the possible contribution of a weak bi-symmetric potential which would naturally explain these peculiarities.
