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- Meijerink, R., et al.
(författare)
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Evidence for CO Shock Excitation in NGC 6240 from Herschel SPIRE Spectroscopy
- 2013
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal Letters. - 2041-8213 .- 2041-8205. ; 762:2, s. L16-L20
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present Herschel SPIRE FTS spectroscopy of the nearby luminous infrared galaxy NGC 6240. In total 20 linesare detected, including CO J = 4−3 through J = 13−12, 6 H2O rotational lines, and [C i] and [N ii] fine-structurelines. The CO to continuum luminosity ratio is 10 times higher in NGC 6240 than Mrk 231. Although the COladdersof NGC 6240 and Mrk 231 are very similar, UV and/or X-ray irradiation are unlikely to be responsible for theexcitation of the gas in NGC 6240.We applied both C and J shock models to the H2 v = 1–0 S(1) and v = 2–1 S(1)lines and the CO rotational ladder. The CO ladder is best reproduced by amodel with shock velocity vs = 10 km s−1and a pre-shock density nH = 5 × 104 cm−3. We find that the solution best fitting the H2 lines is degenerate. The shock velocities and number densities range between vs = 17–47 km s−1 and nH = 107–5×104 cm−3, respectively.The H2 lines thus need a much more powerful shock than the CO lines.We deduce that most of the gas is currently moderately stirred up by slow (10 km s−1) shocks while only a small fraction (1%) of the interstellar mediumis exposed to the high-velocity shocks. This implies that the gas is rapidly losing its highly turbulent motions. We argue that a high CO line-to-continuum ratio is a key diagnostic for the presence of shocks.
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2. |
- Gonzalez-Alfonso, E., et al.
(författare)
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Herschel observations of water vapour in Markarian 231
- 2010
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 518:Article Number: L43
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Ultra luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) Mrk 231 reveals up to seven rotational lines of water (H2O) in emission, including a very high-lying (Eupper = 640 K) line detected at a 4 sigma level, within the Herschel/SPIRE wavelength range (190
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3. |
- van der Werf, P.P., et al.
(författare)
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Black hole accretion and star formation as drivers of gas excitation and chemistry in Markarian 231
- 2010
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 518:Article Number: L42
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present a full high resolution SPIRE FTS spectrum of the nearby ultraluminous infrared galaxy Mrk 231. In total 25 lines are detected, including CO J = 5-4 through J = 13-12, 7 rotational lines of H2O, 3 of OH+ and one line each of H2O+, CH+, and HF. We find that the excitation of the CO rotational levels up to J = 8 can be accounted for by UV radiation from star formation. However, the approximately flat luminosity distribution of the CO lines over the rotational ladder above J = 8 requires the presence of a separate source of excitation for the highest CO lines. We explore X-ray heating by the accreting supermassive black hole in Mrk 231 as a source of excitation for these lines, and find that it can reproduce the observed luminosities. We also consider a model with dense gas in a strong UV radiation field to produce the highest CO lines, but find that this model strongly overpredicts the hot dust mass in Mrk 231. Our favoured model consists of a star forming disk of radius 560 pc, containing clumps of dense gas exposed to strong UV radiation, dominating the emission of CO lines up to J = 8. X-rays from the accreting supermassive black hole in Mrk 231 dominate the excitation and chemistry of the inner disk out to a radius of 160 pc, consistent with the X-ray power of the AGN in Mrk 231. The extraordinary luminosity of the OH+ and H2O+ lines reveals the signature of X-ray driven excitation and chemistry in this region.
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4. |
- Greve, T. R., et al.
(författare)
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Star Formation Relations and CO-Spectral Line Energy Distributions Across the J-Ladder and Redshift
- 2014
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - : American Astronomical Society. - 1538-4357 .- 0004-637X. ; 794:2, s. Art. no. 142-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present FIR [50-300 mu m]-CO luminosity relations (i.e., log L-FIR = alpha log L'(CO) + beta) for the full CO rotational ladder from J = 1-0 up to J = 13-12 for a sample of 62 local (z 10(11) L-circle dot) using data from Herschel SPIRE-FTS and ground-based telescopes. We extend our sample to high redshifts (z > 1) by including 35 submillimeter selected dusty star forming galaxies from the literature with robust CO observations, and sufficiently well-sampled FIR/submillimeter spectral energy distributions (SEDs), so that accurate FIR luminosities can be determined. The addition of luminous starbursts at high redshifts enlarge the range of the FIR-CO luminosity relations toward the high-IR-luminosity end, while also significantly increasing the small amount of mid-J/high-J CO line data (J = 5-4 and higher) that was available prior to Herschel. This new data set (both in terms of IR luminosity and J-ladder) reveals linear FIR-CO luminosity relations (i.e., a similar or equal to 1) for J = 1-0 up to J = 5-4, with a nearly constant normalization (beta similar to 2). In the simplest physical scenario, this is expected from the (also) linear FIR-(molecular line) relations recently found for the dense gas tracer lines (HCN and CS), as long as the dense gas mass fraction does not vary strongly within our (merger/starburst)-dominated sample. However, from J = 6-5 and up to the J = 13-12 transition, we find an increasingly sublinear slope and higher normalization constant with increasing J. We argue that these are caused by a warm (similar to 100 K) and dense (>10(4) cm(-3)) gas component whose thermal state is unlikely to be maintained by star-formation-powered far-UV radiation fields (and thus is no longer directly tied to the star formation rate). We suggest that mechanical heating (e.g., supernova-driven turbulence and shocks), and not cosmic rays, is the more likely source of energy for this component. The global CO spectral line energy distributions, which remain highly excited from J = 6-5 up to J = 13-12, are found to be a generic feature of the (U)LIRGs in our sample, and further support the presence of this gas component.
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