Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pjpqr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-29T06:51:46.922Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Warped Disk of Centaurus A from a Radius of 2 to 6500 pc

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2013

Alice C. Quillen ,
Nadine Neumayer ,
Tom Oosterloo  and
Daniel Espada
Alice C. Quillen*
Affiliation:
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA
Nadine Neumayer
Affiliation:
European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str 2, 85748 Garching, Germany
Tom Oosterloo
Affiliation:
Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy, Postbus 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo, the Netherlands; Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen, PO Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands
Daniel Espada
Affiliation:
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (CSIC), Apdo. 3004, 18080 Granada, Spain
*
FCorresponding author. Email: aquillen@pas.rochester.edu
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

We compile position and inclination angles for tilted ring fits to the warped dusty and gaseous disk of Cen A, spanning a radius of 1.8 to 6500 pc, from recent observations. For radii exterior to 1 kpc, tilted-ring orientations lie on an arc, on a plot of polar-inclination versus position-angle, suggesting that precession following a merger can account for the ring morphology. Three kinks in the ring orientations are seen on the polar plot, the one at radius of about 1.3 kpc we suspect corresponds to the location where self-gravity in the disk affects the ring precession rate. Another at a radius of about 600 pc may be associated with a gap in the gas distribution. A third kink is seen at a radius of 100 pc. A constant inclination tilted disk precessing about the jet axis may describe the disk between 100 and 20 pc but not interior to this. A model with disk orientation matching the molecular circumnuclear disk at 100 pc that decays at smaller radii to an inner flat disk perpendicular to the jet may account for disk orientations within 100 pc. Neither model would account for the cusps or changes in disk orientation at 100 or 600 pc.

Keywords

galaxies: individual (NGC 5128, Cen A)galaxies: jetsgalaxies: nuclei
Type
Research Article
Information
Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia , Volume 27 , Special Issue 4: The Many Faces of Centaurus A , 2010 , pp. 396 - 401
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 2010

References

Bland, J., 1986, PhD Thesis, University of SussexGoogle Scholar
Bland, J., Taylor, K. & Atherton, P. D., 1987, MNRAS, 228, 595CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burns, J. O., Feigelson, E. D. & Schreier, E. J., 1983, ApJ, 273, 128CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cappellari, M., Neumayer, N., Reunanen, J., van der Werf, P. P., de Zeeuw, P. T. & Rix, H.-W., 2009, MNRAS, 394, 660CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caproni, A., Abraham, Z., Livio, M. & Mosquera Cuesta, H.J., 2007, MNRAS, 379, 135CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Espada, D. et al. , 2009, ApJ, 695, 116CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardcastle, M. J., Worrall, D. M., Kraft, R. P., Forman, W. R., Jones, C. & Murray, S. S., 2003, ApJ, 593, 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, G., Rejkuba, M. & Harris, B., 2009, this proceedings and on the distance to Cen A of 3.8 MpcGoogle Scholar
Kraft, R. P. et al. , 2000, ApJ, 531, L9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lodato, G. & Pringle, J. E., 2006, MNRAS, 368, 1196CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maloney, P. R., Begelman, M. C. & Pringle, J. E., 1996 ApJ, 472, 582CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neumayer, N., Cappellari, M., Reunanen, J., Rix, H.-W., van der Werf, P. P., de Zeeuw, P. T. & Davies, R. I., 2007, ApJ, 671, 1329CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholson, R. A., Bland-Hawthorn, J. & Taylor, K., 1992, ApJ, 387, 503CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papaloizou, J. C. B. & Pringle, J. E., 1983, MNRAS, 202, 1181CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pringle, J. E., 1996, MNRAS, 281, 357CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quillen, A. C. & Bower, G. A., 1999, ApJ, 522, 718CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quillen, A. C., de Zeeuw, P.T., Phinney, E. S. & Phillips, T. G., 1992, ApJ, 391, 121CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quillen, A. C., Graham, J. R. & Frogel, J. A., 1993, ApJ, 412, 550CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quillen, A. C., 2001, ApJ, 563, 313CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quillen, A., Brookes, M. H., Keene, J., Stern, D., Lawrence, C. R. & Werner, M. W., 2006a, ApJ, 645, 1092CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quillen, A. C., Bland-Hawthorn, J., Brookes, M. H., Werner, M. W., Smith, J. D., Stern, D., Keene, J. & Lawrence, C. R., 2006b, ApJ, 641, L29CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sparke, L. S., 1996, ApJ, 473, 810CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steiman-Cameron, T. Y. & Durisen, R. H., 1988, ApJ, 325, 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Struve, C., Morganti, R., Oosterloo, T. A. & Emonts, B. H. C., 2010, PASA, 27, 390CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tingay, S. J. et al. , 1998, AJ, 115, 960CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tubbs, A. D., 1980, ApJ, 241, 969CrossRefGoogle Scholar