Extended coronal emission lines in active galactic nuclei

Rodríguez-Ardila, Alberto; Prieto, Almudena; Viegas, Sueli M.
Referencia bibliográfica

The Interplay among Black Holes, Stars and ISM in Galactic Nuclei, Proceedings of IAU Symposium, No. 222. Edited by T. Storchi-Bergmann, L.C. Ho, and Henrique R. Schmitt. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004., p.283-286

Fecha de publicación:
11
2004
Número de autores
3
Número de autores del IAC
0
Número de citas
4
Número de citas referidas
4
Descripción
VLT and NTT spectra are used to examine the nuclear and extended coronal line emission in a sample of well-known Seyfert 1 and 2 galaxies. The excellent spatial resolution obtained with VLT allowed us to map [Si VI] 1.963μm and [Si VII] 2.48μm on scales of up to 20 pc. Coronal line emission, extended to distances of ˜102 pc, is detected in some of the lines analyzed, particularly in [Fe X] 6374Å, [Fe XI] 7891Å, and [Si VII] 2.48μm. Most coronal lines are strongly asymmetric towards the blue and broader than low-ionization lines. This result is particularly important for Circinus, where previous observations have failed to detect larger widths for high-ionization lines. Photoionization models are used to investigate the physical conditions and continuum luminosities necessary to produced the observed coronal emission. We found that an ionization parameter U>0.10 is necessary to reproduce the observations, although the clouds should be located at a distance <30 pc from the central engine.