Near and Mid Infrared Imaging Polarimetry of NGC1068

Details Near and Mid Infrared Imaging Polarimetry of NGC1068 Near and Mid Infrared Imaging Polarimetry of NGC1068

1998-07-07

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9807058v1

Astrophys.Space Sci.248:287-293,1997

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

15 pages, 5 figures. To be published in MNRAS

Scientific paper

10.1023/A:1000540703996

We present the results of a series of observations of the near- and mid-infrared polarisation properties of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC1068. Our data agree well with previously published results in showing the need for a separate polarisation mechanism in the near infrared apart from scattering. We find that the predictions of a simple model in which this component arises through absorptive dichroism due to aligned grains within the extended warm (~400K) dust fits the data reasonably if the obscured background source is itself due to dust emission (at temperature >1000K). By considering the change of polarisation with wavelength we show that the extinction to this hot dust region is in the range AV=20-40. Consideration of the observed data then leads us to the conclusion that if viewed face-on, NGC1068 would have a strong near-infrared excess similar to Seyfert 1 galaxies. Comparison with other independent measures of the extinction to the active nucleus itself lead us to the conclusion that the hot dust must provide screening equivalent to at least AV=40, and possibly much higher. We speculate that this component alone may be the `classical' torus discussed in terms of the unified model, and the more extensive mid-infrared emission may arise from circumnuclear molecular cloud material, and dust in the ionisation cones.

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