THE MOLECULAR WIND IN THE NEAREST SEYFERT GALAXY CIRCINUS REVEALED BY ALMA
- Max Planck Institute für Astronomie—Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg (Germany)
- Department of Astronomy and Joint Space Science Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20642 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, The Ohio State University, 140 West 18th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States)
- Department of Physics, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, 801 Leroy Place, Socorro, NM 87801 (United States)
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory—P.O. Box O, 1003 Lopezville Road, Socorro, NM 87801 (United States)
We present ALMA observations of the inner 1′ (1.2 kpc) of the Circinus galaxy, the nearest Seyfert. We target CO (1–0) in the region associated with a well-known multiphase outflow driven by the central active galactic nucleus (AGN). While the geometry of Circinus and its outflow make disentangling the latter difficult, we see indications of outflowing molecular gas at velocities consistent with the ionized outflow. We constrain the mass of the outflowing molecular gas to be 1.5 × 10{sup 5}−5.1 × 10{sup 6} M {sub ⊙}, yielding a molecular outflow rate of 0.35–12.3 M {sub ⊙} yr{sup −1}. The values within this range are comparable to the star formation (SF) rate in Circinus, indicating that the outflow indeed regulates SF to some degree. The molecular outflow in Circinus is considerably lower in mass and energetics than previously studied AGN-driven outflows, especially given its high ratio of AGN luminosity to bolometric luminosity. The molecular outflow in Circinus is, however, consistent with some trends put forth by Cicone et al., including a linear relation between kinetic power and AGN luminosity, as well as its momentum rate versus bolometric luminosity (although the latter places Circinus among the starburst galaxies in that sample). We detect additional molecular species including CN and C{sup 17}O.
- OSTI ID:
- 22661001
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 832, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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