Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 2004
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004aas...205.2610c&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society Meeting 205, #26.10; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 36, p.1387
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
1
Scientific paper
The gas-rich nucleus of barred spiral galaxy, M83, is a hotbed of star formation, with a total infrared luminosity of 4 X 109 Lo. We have observed the nucleus of M83 with the near infrared spectrometer, NIRSPEC, on Keck 2 to obtain high resolution Brγ recombination line spectra of the nucleus. Simultaneous imaging with the SCAM camera in a broadband K filter shows the position of the slit on the near-infrared galaxy. This allows us to map the nucleus with a continuum reference. The SCAM image shows a bright peak at the nucleus and a complex semi-circular arc of emission to the southwest. We stepped the 0.5'' X 24'' length slit in small declination increments to map a 20'' X 20'' region just west of the nucleus. Individual spectra were used to form a ra-dec-lambda cube and an integrated intensity map of Brγ .
A total of 1.1 X 10-16 W m-2 of Brγ emission is detected in the map, in good agreement with previous low resolution observations (Turner, Ho, & Beck 1987, ApJ, 313, 644). This is not corrected for extinction within the molecular clouds in M83 or to the nebulae themselves and is therefore a lower limit to the true Brγ flux. Extinction is estimated to be at least a magnitude in the near-IR as measured in larger (4'') beams (Turner et al.) The bulk of the Brγ emission extends along the northern portion of the near-IR continuum semi-circle. Twenty percent of the total Brγ emission comes from single a 3'' (FWHM) source located 5'' west of the near-IR nucleus.
The complementary NIRSPEC Brα data we have obtained will eventually allow us to evaluate the near-IR extinction on subarcsecond sizescales and obtain an extinction-corrected estimate of the Lyman continuum rate and therefore the number of ionizing stars.
Beck Sara C.
Crosthwaite Lucian P.
Meier David Stuart
Turner Jean L.
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