The Galaxy Activity, Torus, and Outflow Survey (GATOS). VII. The 20–214 μm Imaging Atlas of Active Galactic Nuclei Using SOFIA

Abstract

We present a 19.7–214 μ m imaging atlas of local (4–181 Mpc; median 43 Mpc) active galactic nuclei (AGN) observed with FORCAST and HAWC+ on board the SOFIA telescope with angular resolutions ~3 ″ –20 ″ . This atlas comprises 22 Seyferts (17 Type 2 and five Type 1) with a total of 69 images, 41 of which have not been previously published. The AGN span a range of luminosities of ${\mathrm{log}}_{10}({L}_{\mathrm{bol}}[\mathrm{erg}\,{{\rm{s}}}^{-1}])=[42,46]$ with a median of ${{\rm{log}}}_{10}({L}_{{\rm{bol}}}[{\rm{erg}}{{\rm{s}}}^{-1}])=44.1\pm 1.0$ . We provide the total fluxes of our sample using aperture photometry for point-source objects and a 2D Gaussian fitting for objects with extended host galaxy emission, which was used to estimate the unresolved nuclear component. Most galaxies in our sample are pointlike sources; however, four sources (Centaurus A, Circinus, NGC 1068, and NGC 4388) show extended emission in all wavelengths. The 30–40 μ m extended emission in NGC 4388 is coincident with the narrow-line region at PA ~ 50°, while the dusty extension at longer wavelengths arises from the host galaxy at PA ~ 90°. Our new observations allow us to construct the best-sampled parsec-scales (spectral energy distributions, SEDs) available between 30 and 500 μ m for a sample of nearby AGN. We estimate that the average peak wavelength of the nuclear SEDs is ~40 μ m in νF _ν , which we associate with an unresolved extended dusty region heated by the AGN.

Keywords

• Active galaxies
• Active galactic nuclei
• Supermassive black holes