Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21641912m&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #216, #419.12
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We have used the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) to observe the CO J = 2 - 1 transition in a sample of 46 Seyfert galaxies and detected 35. The galaxies were selected by their joint soft X-ray (0.1 - 2.4 keV) and far-infrared (λ = 60 μm) emission from the ROSAT/IRAS sample. We find a good correlation between the CO and the X-ray luminosities, for both Seyfert 1 (Sy1) and Seyfert 2 (Sy2) galaxies. When analyzing the molecular gas content in the different Seyfert types we find that Sy1s present an excess of CO J = 2 - 1 luminosity at a given FIR luminosity, with LCO(Sy1) ≈ 1.4 LCO(Sy2). We have also studied the CO kinematics of the central region. We compare the CO line widths with the X-ray luminosity and find that the Sy1 CO line widths correlate better than do the Sy2s. These results may imply that significant amounts of molecular gas are concentrated in the nuclear region and related to the nuclear activity, leading to two possible scenarios. First, that star formation activity may directly control the mass accretion rate at the central black hole. Second, the X-rays from the central black hole heat the molecular cloud, enhancing the excitation of CO molecules. Confirmation of these results with higher density tracers, such as HCN and HCO+, higher resolution maps of CO and higher density tracers, and comparison of the gas properties with non-Seyfert galaxies, are needed.
Monje Raquel R.
Phillips Thomas
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