The Astrophysical Journal (Jan 2024)
GOALS-JWST: The Warm Molecular Outflows of the Merging Starburst Galaxy NGC 3256
- Thomas Bohn,
- Hanae Inami,
- Aditya Togi,
- Lee Armus,
- Thomas S.-Y. Lai,
- Loreto Barcos-Munoz,
- Yiqing Song,
- S. T. Linden,
- Jason Surace,
- Marina Bianchin,
- Vivian U,
- Aaron S. Evans,
- Torsten Böker,
- Matthew A. Malkan,
- Kirsten L. Larson,
- Sabrina Stierwalt,
- Victorine A. Buiten,
- Vassilis Charmandaris,
- Tanio Diaz-Santos,
- Justin H. Howell,
- George C. Privon,
- Claudio Ricci,
- Paul P. van der Werf,
- Susanne Aalto,
- Christopher C. Hayward,
- Justin A. Kader,
- Joseph M. Mazzarella,
- Francisco Muller-Sanchez,
- David B. Sanders
Affiliations
- Thomas Bohn
- ORCiD
- Hiroshima Astrophysical Science Center, Hiroshima University , 1-3-1 Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8526, Japan ; [email protected]
- Hanae Inami
- ORCiD
- Hiroshima Astrophysical Science Center, Hiroshima University , 1-3-1 Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8526, Japan ; [email protected]
- Aditya Togi
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, Texas State University , 601 University Drive, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA
- Lee Armus
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 E. California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Thomas S.-Y. Lai
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 E. California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Loreto Barcos-Munoz
- ORCiD
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory , 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA; Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia , 530 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
- Yiqing Song
- ORCiD
- European Southern Observatory , Alonso de Córdova, 3107, Vitacura, Santiago 763-0355, Chile; Joint ALMA Observatory , Alonso de Córdova, 3107, Vitacura, Santiago 763-0355, Chile
- S. T. Linden
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts at Amherst , Amherst, MA 01003, USA
- Jason Surace
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 E. California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Marina Bianchin
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, 4129 Frederick Reines Hall, University of California , Irvine, CA 92697, USA
- Vivian U
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, 4129 Frederick Reines Hall, University of California , Irvine, CA 92697, USA
- Aaron S. Evans
- ORCiD
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory , 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA; Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia , 530 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
- Torsten Böker
- ORCiD
- European Space Agency, Space Telescope Science Institute , Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Matthew A. Malkan
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California Los Angeles , Los Angeles, CA 90095-1547, USA
- Kirsten L. Larson
- ORCiD
- AURA for the European Space Agency (ESA), Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Sabrina Stierwalt
- ORCiD
- Occidental College , Physics Department, 1600 Campus Road, Los Angeles, CA 90042, USA
- Victorine A. Buiten
- ORCiD
- Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
- Vassilis Charmandaris
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Crete , Heraklion 71003, Greece; Institute of Astrophysics , Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion 70013, Greece; School of Sciences, European University Cyprus , Diogenes Street, Engomi, 1516 Nicosia, Cyprus
- Tanio Diaz-Santos
- ORCiD
- Institute of Astrophysics , Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion 70013, Greece; School of Sciences, European University Cyprus , Diogenes Street, Engomi, 1516 Nicosia, Cyprus
- Justin H. Howell
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 E. California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- George C. Privon
- ORCiD
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory , 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA; Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia , 530 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA; Department of Astronomy, University of Florida , P.O. Box 112055, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
- Claudio Ricci
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Estudios Astrofísicos, Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Universidad Diego Portales , Av. Ejército Libertador 441, Santiago, Chile; Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University , Beijing 100871, People's Republic of China
- Paul P. van der Werf
- ORCiD
- Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
- Susanne Aalto
- ORCiD
- Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology , 412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden
- Christopher C. Hayward
- ORCiD
- Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute , 162 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
- Justin A. Kader
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, 4129 Frederick Reines Hall, University of California , Irvine, CA 92697, USA
- Joseph M. Mazzarella
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 E. California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Francisco Muller-Sanchez
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Materials Science, The University of Memphis , 3720 Alumni Avenue, Memphis, TN 38152, USA
- David B. Sanders
- ORCiD
- Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii , 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad87d3
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 977,
no. 1
p. 36
Abstract
We present James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) integral-field spectrograph observations of NGC 3256, a local infrared-luminous late-stage merging system with two nuclei roughly 1 kpc apart, both of which have evidence of cold molecular outflows. Using JWST/NIRSpec and Mid-Infrared Instrument data sets, we investigate this morphologically complex system on spatial scales of <100 pc, where we focus on the warm molecular H _2 gas surrounding the nuclei. We detect collimated outflowing warm H _2 gas originating from the southern nucleus, though we do not find significant outflowing H _2 gas surrounding the northern nucleus. We measure maximum intrinsic outflow velocities of ∼1000 km s ^−1 , which extend out to a distance of 0.7 kpc. Based on H _2 S(7)/S(1) ratios, we find a larger fraction of warmer gas near the southern nucleus, which decreases with increasing distance from the nucleus, signifying the southern nucleus as a primary source of H _2 heating. The gas mass of the warm H _2 outflow component is estimated to be M _warm _,out = (1.4 ± 0.2) × 10 ^6 M _⊙ , as much as 6% of the cold H _2 mass estimated using Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array CO data. The outflow timescale is about 7 × 10 ^5 yr, resulting in a mass outflow rate ${\dot{M}}_{\mathrm{warm},\mathrm{out}}=2.0\pm 0.8\,{M}_{\odot }\,{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1}$ and kinetic power P _warm,out ∼ 4 × 10 ^41 erg s ^−1 . Lastly, regions within our 3.″0 × 3.″0 NIRSpec data, where the outflowing gas reside show high [Fe ii ]/Pa β and H _2 /Br γ line ratios, indicate enhanced mechanical heating caused by the outflows. The fluxes and ratios of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in these regions are not significantly different compared to those elsewhere in the disk, suggesting the outflows may not significantly alter the PAH ionization state or grain size.
Keywords
- Galaxy mergers
- Infrared astronomy
- Infrared sources
- Luminous infrared galaxies
- Molecular gas
- Galaxy winds
