The Astrophysical Journal Letters (Jan 2023)
GOALS-JWST: Small Neutral Grains and Enhanced 3.3 μm PAH Emission in the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 7469
- Thomas S.-Y. Lai,
- Lee Armus,
- Marina Bianchin,
- Tanio Díaz-Santos,
- Sean T. Linden,
- George C. Privon,
- Hanae Inami,
- Vivian U,
- Thomas Bohn,
- Aaron S. Evans,
- Kirsten L. Larson,
- Brandon S. Hensley,
- J.-D. T. Smith,
- Matthew A. Malkan,
- Yiqing Song,
- Sabrina Stierwalt,
- Paul P. van der Werf,
- Jed McKinney,
- Susanne Aalto,
- Victorine A. Buiten,
- Jeff Rich,
- Vassilis Charmandaris,
- Philip Appleton,
- Loreto Barcos-Muñoz,
- Torsten Böker,
- Luke Finnerty,
- Justin A. Kader,
- David R. Law,
- Anne M. Medling,
- Michael J. I. Brown,
- Christopher C. Hayward,
- Justin Howell,
- Kazushi Iwasawa,
- Francisca Kemper,
- Jason Marshall,
- Joseph M. Mazzarella,
- Francisco Müller-Sánchez,
- Eric J. Murphy,
- David Sanders,
- Jason Surace
Affiliations
- Thomas S.-Y. Lai
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- Lee Armus
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- Marina Bianchin
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, 4129 Frederick Reines Hall, University of California , Irvine, CA 92697, USA
- Tanio Díaz-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
- Sean T. Linden
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, 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
- Hanae Inami
- ORCiD
- Hiroshima Astrophysical Science Center, Hiroshima University , 1-3-1 Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8526, Japan
- Vivian U
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, 4129 Frederick Reines Hall, University of California , Irvine, CA 92697, USA
- Thomas Bohn
- ORCiD
- Hiroshima Astrophysical Science Center, Hiroshima University , 1-3-1 Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8526, Japan
- 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
- Kirsten L. Larson
- ORCiD
- AURA for the European Space Agency (ESA), Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Brandon S. Hensley
- ORCiD
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University , Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- J.-D. T. Smith
- ORCiD
- Ritter Astrophysical Research Center, University of Toledo , Toledo, OH 43606, USA
- Matthew A. Malkan
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics & Astronomy, 430 Portola Plaza, University of California , Los Angeles, CA 90095, 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
- Sabrina Stierwalt
- ORCiD
- Physics Department, 1600 Campus Road, Occidental College , Los Angeles, CA 90041, USA
- Paul P. van der Werf
- ORCiD
- Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , P.O. Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
- Jed McKinney
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
- Susanne Aalto
- ORCiD
- Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology , SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden
- Victorine A. Buiten
- Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , P.O. Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
- Jeff Rich
- ORCiD
- The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science , 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101, USA
- Vassilis Charmandaris
- 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; Department of Physics, University of Crete , Heraklion, 71003, Greece
- Philip Appleton
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- Loreto Barcos-Muñoz
- 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
- Luke Finnerty
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics & Astronomy, 430 Portola Plaza, University of California , Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
- Justin A. Kader
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, 4129 Frederick Reines Hall, University of California , Irvine, CA 92697, USA
- David R. Law
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Anne M. Medling
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics & Astronomy and Ritter Astrophysical Research Center, University of Toledo , Toledo, OH 43606, USA
- Michael J. I. Brown
- ORCiD
- School of Physics and Astronomy, Monash University , Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia
- Christopher C. Hayward
- ORCiD
- Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute , 162 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
- Justin Howell
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- Kazushi Iwasawa
- ORCiD
- Institut de Ciències del Cosmos (ICCUB), Universitat de Barcelona (IEEC-UB) , Martí i Franquès, 1, E-08028 Barcelona, Spain; ICREA , Pg. Lluís Companys 23, E-08010 Barcelona, Spain
- Francisca Kemper
- ORCiD
- Institut de Ciencies de l’Espai (ICE, CSIC) , Can Magrans, s/n, E-08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain; ICREA , Pg. Lluís Companys 23, Barcelona, Spain; Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC) , E-08034 Barcelona, Spain
- Jason Marshall
- ORCiD
- Glendale Community College , 1500 North Verdugo Road, Glendale, CA 91208, USA
- Joseph M. Mazzarella
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- Francisco Müller-Sánchez
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Materials Science, The University of Memphis , 3720 Alumni Avenue, Memphis, TN 38152, USA
- Eric J. Murphy
- ORCiD
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory , 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
- David Sanders
- ORCiD
- Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii , 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
- Jason Surace
- ORCiD
- IPAC, California Institute of Technology , 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA ; [email protected]
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ad0387
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 957,
no. 2
p. L26
Abstract
We present James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) integral field spectroscopy of the nearby luminous infrared galaxy NGC 7469. We take advantage of the high spatial/spectral resolution and wavelength coverage of JWST/NIRSpec to study the 3.3 μ m neutral polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) grain emission on ∼200 pc scales. A clear change in the average grain properties between the star-forming ring and the central AGN is found. Regions in the vicinity of the AGN, with [Ne iii ]/[Ne ii ] > 0.25, tend to have larger grain sizes and lower aliphatic-to-aromatic (3.4/3.3) ratios, indicating that smaller grains are preferentially removed by photodestruction in the vicinity of the AGN. PAH emission at the nucleus is weak and shows a low 11.3/3.3 PAH ratio. We find an overall suppression of the total PAH emission relative to the ionized gas in the central 1 kpc region of the AGN in NGC 7469 compared to what has been observed with Spitzer on 3 kpc scales. However, the fractional 3.3 μ m–to–total PAH power is enhanced in the starburst ring, possibly due to a variety of physical effects on subkiloparsec scales, including recurrent fluorescence of small grains or multiple photon absorption by large grains. Finally, the IFU data show that while the 3.3 μ m PAH-derived star formation rate (SFR) in the ring is 27% higher than that inferred from the [Ne ii ] and [Ne iii ] emission lines, the integrated SFR derived from the 3.3 μ m feature would be underestimated by a factor of 2 due to the deficit of PAHs around the AGN, as might occur if a composite system like NGC 7469 were to be observed at high redshift.
Keywords
- Seyfert galaxies
- Active galactic nuclei
- Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
- Starburst galaxies
- Luminous infrared galaxies
