BLAST OBSERVATIONS OF RESOLVED GALAXIES: TEMPERATURE PROFILES AND THE EFFECT OF ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI ON FIR TO SUBMILLIMETER EMISSION

Journal Article · Sun Dec 20 04:00:00 EST 2009 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/707/2/1809· OSTI ID:21392540

Wiebe, Donald V; Chapin, Edward L; Halpern, Mark; Marsden, Gaelen ^[1]; Ade, Peter A. R.; Griffin, Matthew; Hargrave, Peter C; Mauskopf, Philip; Pascale, Enzo ^[2]; Bock, James J ^[3]; Devlin, Mark J; Dicker, Simon; Klein, Jeff; Rex, Marie ^[4]; Gundersen, Joshua O ^[5]; Hughes, David H ^[6]; Martin, Peter G ^[7]; Netterfield, Calvin B ^[8]; Olmi, Luca ^[9]; Patanchon, Guillaume ^[10]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 (Canada)
2. School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, 5 The Parade, Cardiff, CF24 3AA (United Kingdom)
3. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099 (United States)
4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, 209 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (United States)
5. Department of Physics, University of Miami, 1320 Campo Sano Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146 (United States)
6. Instituto Nacional de AstrofIsica Optica y Electronica, Aptdo. Postal 51 y 216, 72000 Puebla (Mexico)
7. Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3H8 (Canada)
8. Department of Physics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 1A7 (Canada)
9. Istituto di Radioastronomia, Largo E. Fermi 5, I-50125, Firenze (Italy)
10. Laboratoire APC, 10, rue Alice Domon et Leonie Duquet 75205 Paris (France)

Over the course of two flights, the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) made resolved maps of seven nearby (<25 Mpc) galaxies at 250, 350, and 500 mum. During its 2005 June flight from Sweden, BLAST observed a single nearby galaxy, NGC 4565. During the 2006 December flight from Antarctica, BLAST observed the nearby galaxies NGC 1097, NGC 1291, NGC 1365, NGC 1512, NGC 1566, and NGC 1808. We fit physical dust models to a combination of BLAST observations and other available data for the galaxies observed by Spitzer. We fit a modified blackbody to the remaining galaxies to obtain total dust mass and mean dust temperature. For the four galaxies with Spitzer data, we also produce maps and radial profiles of dust column density and temperature. We measure the fraction of BLAST detected flux originating from the central cores of these galaxies and use this to calculate a 'core fraction', an upper limit on the 'active galactic nucleus fraction' of these galaxies. We also find our resolved observations of these galaxies give a dust mass estimate 5-19 times larger than an unresolved observation would predict. Finally, we are able to use these data to derive a value for the dust mass absorption coefficient of kappa = 0.29 +- 0.03 m{sup 2} kg{sup -1} at 250 mum. This study is an introduction to future higher-resolution and higher-sensitivity studies to be conducted by Herschel and SCUBA-2.

• OSTI ID: 21392540
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 707; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ABSORPTION
AIRCRAFT
ANTARCTIC REGIONS
ANTARCTICA
APERTURES
BALLOONS
CRYOSPHERE
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
DUSTS
EMISSION
EUROPE
EXPLOSIONS
GALAXIES
GALAXY NUCLEI
MAPS
MASS
OPENINGS
PHOTOMETRY
POLAR REGIONS
SCANDINAVIA
SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
SORPTION
SWEDEN
TELESCOPES
WESTERN EUROPE