NGC 6744 - A nearby Milky Way twin with a very low-luminosity AGN

Abstract

NGC 6744 is the nearest and brightest south-hemisphere galaxy with a morphological type similar to that of the Milky Way. Using data obtained with the Integral Field Unit of the Gemini South Multi-Object Spectrograph, we found that this galaxy has a nucleus with LINER (Low Ionization Nuclear Emission Line Region) surrounded by three line emitting regions. The analysis of the Hubble Space Telescope archival images revealed that the nucleus is associated with a blue compact source, probably corresponding to the active galactic nucleus (AGN). The circumnuclear emission seems to be part of the extended narrow line region of the AGN. One of these regions, located $\sim$1" southeast of the nucleus, seems to be associated with the ionization cone of the AGN. The other two regions are located $\sim$1" south and $\sim$0.6" northeast of the nucleus and are not aligned with the gaseous rotating disk. Spectral synthesis shows evidence that this galaxy may have gone through a merger about one billion years ago. On the basis of the kinematic behavior, we found a gaseous rotating disk, not co-aligned with the stellar disk. Given the relative degree of ionization and luminosities of the nuclear and circumnuclear regions, we suggest that the AGN was more luminous in the past and that the current circumnuclear emissions are echoes of that phase.

arXiv comment16 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables, published in ApJ

References in corpus (24)

• The Host Galaxies of AGN
• Theoretical Modeling of Starburst Galaxies
• Parametric Recovery of Line-of-Sight Velocity Distributions from Absorption-Line Spectra of Galaxies via Penalized Likelihood
• The Host Galaxies and Classification of Active Galactic Nuclei
• Cosmic-Ray Rejection by Laplacian Edge Detection
• MILES: A Medium resolution INT Library of Empirical Spectra
• The M-sigma and M-L Relations in Galactic Bulges and Determinations of their Intrinsic Scatter
• Nuclear Activity in Nearby Galaxies
• The MAPPINGS III Library of Fast Radiative Shock Models
• Observational evidence for AGN feedback in early-type galaxies
• A comprehensive classification of galaxies in the SDSS: How to tell true from fake AGN?
• A Merger-Driven Scenario for Cosmological Disk Galaxy Formation
• The effect of galaxy mass ratio on merger--driven starbursts
• Formation of a spiral galaxy in a major merger
• Formation of gas disks in merging galaxies
• Galaxy Zoo : 'Hanny's Voorwerp', a quasar light echo?
• Bulges Of Nearby Galaxies With Spitzer: Scaling Relations in Pseudobulges and Classical Bulges
• The History and Environment of a Faded Quasar: Hubble Space Telescope observations of Hanny's Voorwerp and IC 2497
• The Star Formation History and Evolution of the Circumnuclear Region of M100
• A treatment procedure for Gemini North/NIFS data cubes: application to NGC 4151
• A treatment procedure for VLT/SINFONI data cubes: application to NGC 5643
• The impact of bars on the mid-infrared dust emission of spiral galaxies: global and circumnuclear properties
• Cool Gas and Massive Stars - the Nuclear Ring in M100
• IFU spectroscopy of 10 early-type galactic nuclei - III. Properties of the circumnuclear gas emission

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Euclid: Early Release Observations -- Deep anatomy of nearby galaxies
• NGC 7469 as seen by MEGARA: new results from high-resolution IFU spectroscopy
• The DIVING${}^{3D}$ Survey -- Deep IFS View of Nuclei of Galaxies -- I. Definition and Sample Presentation
• The HST Large Programme on NGC 6752. I. Serendipitous discovery of a dwarf Galaxy in background