Bibcode
Fathi, K.; Axon, David J.; Storchi-Bergmann, Thaisa; Kharb, Preeti; Robinson, Andrew; Marconi, Alessandro; Maciejewski, Witold; Capetti, Alessandro
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 736, Issue 2, article id. 77 (2011).
Advertised on:
8
2011
Journal
Citations
12
Refereed citations
12
Description
We report the discovery of a two-armed mini-spiral structure within the
inner kiloparsec of the E0 LINER/Seyfert 1 galaxy Arp 102B. The arms are
observed in Hα emission and located east and west of the nucleus,
extending up to ≈1 kpc from it. We use narrow-band imaging from the
Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys, in combination with
archival Very Large Array radio images at 3.6 and 6 cm to investigate
the origin of the nuclear spiral. From the Hα luminosity of the
spiral, we obtain an ionized gas mass of the order of 106
solar masses. One possibility is that the nuclear spiral represents a
gas inflow triggered by a recent accretion event which has replenished
the accretion disk, giving rise to the double-peaked emission-line
profiles characteristic of Arp 102B. However, the radio images show a
one-sided curved jet which correlates with the eastern spiral arm
observed in the Hα image. A published milliarcsecond radio image
also shows a one-sided structure at position angle ≈40°,
approximately aligned with the inner part of the eastern spiral arm. The
absence of a radio counterpart to the western spiral arm is tentatively
interpreted as indicating that the jet is relativistic, with an
estimated speed of 0.45c. Estimates of the jet kinetic energy and the
ionizing luminosity of the active nucleus indicate that both are capable
of ionizing the gas along the spiral arms. We conclude that, although
the gas in the nuclear region may have originated in an accretion event,
the mini spiral is most likely the result of a jet-cloud interaction
rather than an inflowing stream.