A Massive Dense Gas Cloud close to the Nucleus of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068

Abstract

Using the ALMA archival data of both CO(6--5) line and 689 GHz continuum emission towards the archetypical Seyfert galaxy, NGC 1068, we identified a distinct continuum peak separated by 14 pc from the nuclear radio component S1 in projection. The continuum flux gives a gas mass of ~2x10^5 Msun and bolometric luminosity of ~10^8 Lsun, leading to a star formation rate of ~0.1 Msun/yr. Subsequent analysis on the line data suggest that the gas has a size of ~10 pc, yielding to mean H2 number density of ~10^5 cm^{-3}. We therefore refer to the gas as "massive dense gas cloud": the gas density is high enough to form a "proto starcluster" whose stellar mass of ~10^4 Msun. We found that the gas stands a unique position between galactic and extraglactic clouds in the diagrams of start formation rate (SFR) vs. gas mass proposed by Lada et al. and surface density of gas vs. SFR density by Krumholz and McKee. All the gaseous and star-formation properties may be understood in terms of the turbulence-regulated star formation scenario. Since there are two stellar populations with the ages of 300 Myr and 30 Myr in the 100 pc-scale circumnulear region, we discuss that NGC1068 has experienced at least three episodic star formation events with a tendency that the inner star-forming region is the younger. Together with several lines of evidence that the dynamics of the nuclear region is decoupled from that of the entire galactic disk, we discuss that the gas inflow towards the nuclear region of NGC 1068 may be driven by a past minor merger.

arXiv comment15 pages, 6 figures, accepted by PASJ

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Morphological evidence for a past minor merger in the Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068
• λ = 2 mm spectroscopy observations toward the circumnuclear disk of NGC 1068