A Hubble Space Telescope Survey of Extended [O III] λ5007 Emission in a Far-Infrared-Selected Sample of Seyfert Galaxies: Results
Autor: | J. L. Donley, Henrique R. Schmitt, J. B. Hutchings, J. E. Pringle, Robert Antonucci, A. L. Kinney |
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Jazyk: | angličtina |
Rok vydání: | 2003 |
Předmět: |
Physics
QSOS Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Astrophysics (astro-ph) Doubly ionized oxygen FOS: Physical sciences Astronomy Astronomy and Astrophysics Torus Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics Photoionization Astrophysics Unified Model Galaxy Luminosity Far infrared Space and Planetary Science Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics |
DOI: | 10.1086/381224 |
Popis: | We present the results of a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) survey of extended [OIII] emission in a sample of 60 nearby Seyfert galaxies (22 Seyfert 1's and 38 Seyfert 2's), selected by mostly isotropic properties. The comparison between the semi major axis size of their [OIII] emitting regions (R_Maj) shows that Seyfert 1's and Seyfert 2's have similar distributions, which seems to contradict Unified Model predictions. We discuss possible ways to explain this result, which could be due either to observational limitations or the models used for the comparison with our data. We show that Seyfert 1 Narrow Line Regions (NLR's) are more circular and concentrated than Seyfert 2's, which can be attributed to foreshortening in the former. We find a good correlation between the NLR size and luminosity, following the relation R_Maj propto L([OIII])^0.33, which is flatter than a previous one found for QSO's and Seyfert 2's. We discuss possible reasons for the different results, and their implications to photoionization models. We confirm previous results which show that the [OIII] and radio emission are well aligned, and also find no correlation between the orientation of the extended [OIII] emission and the host galaxy major axis. This agrees with results showing that the torus axis and radio jet are not aligned with the host galaxy rotation axis, indicating that the orientation of the gas in the torus, and not the spin of the black hole, determine the orientation of the accretion disk, and consequently the orientation of the radio jet. 17 pages including 12 figures, to appear in ApJ |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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