Deep Submillimeter Imaging of Dust Structures in Centaurus A

Abstract

Images covering the central 450 by 100 arcsecond (about 8.0 by 2.0 kpc) of NGC 5128 (Centaurus A) obtained using SCUBA at 850 and 450 micron with beam sizes of 14.5 and 8 arcsecond respectively, are presented. These data are compared with those obtained at other wavelengths, in particular the optical, mid-infrared, and far-infrared continuum. The sensitive 850 and 450 micron images show that the submillimeter (submm) continuum morphology and spectral index distribution of Centaurus A comprise four regions: an unresolved AGN core, an inner jet interacting with gas in the dust lane, an inner disk of radius roughly 90 arcsecond, and colder outer dust. The inner disk has a high surface brightness, reverse-S-shaped feature in the 850 and 450 micron images that coincides with the regions of intense 7 and 15 micron continuum and a region of active star-formation. The infrared (IR) and submm images appear to reveal the same material as predicted by a geometric warped disk model consisting of tilted rings. We suggest this scenario is more plausible than that recently proposed in literature suggesting that the mid-IR emission in Centaurus A is primarily from a bar, with a structure that is different from the extended warped disk alone. A dust mass total of 2.2 million solar masses has been calculated within a radius of 225 arcsecond, 45% of which is in the star-forming region of radius about 90 arcsecond about the nucleus.

14 pages; 6 Gif (4 color) and 2 Postscript figures; Tentatively scheduled to appear in the v565 n1 ApJ January 20, 2002 issue

References in corpus (2)

• Unveiling the Active Nucleus of Centaurus A
• Modelling the Infrared continuum of Centaurus A

Cited by in corpus (24)

• The Herschel Reference Survey: Dust in Early-Type Galaxies and Across the Hubble Sequence
• The spectral energy distribution of the central parsecs of the nearest AGN
• The supermassive black hole in Centaurus A: a benchmark for gas kinematical measurements
• Spitzer observations of the dusty warped disk of Centaurus A
• LABOCA observations of nearby, active galaxies
• The infrared jet in Centaurus A: multiwavelength constraints on emission mechanisms and particle acceleration
• Observations of Cold Dust in Nearby Elliptical Galaxies
• Disentangling the Circumnuclear Environs of Centaurus A: III. An Inner Molecular Ring, Nuclear Shocks and the CO to warm H2 interface
• The many faces of the gas in Centaurus A (NGC5128)
• The gas-to-dust mass ratio of Centaurus A as seen by Herschel
• Integral-field spectroscopy of Centaurus A nucleus
• Disentangling the circumnuclear environs of Centaurus A: I. High resolution molecular gas imaging
• The millimeter-wave continuum spectrum of Centaurus A and its nucleus
• Spatially Resolved Imaging at 350um of Cold Dust in Nearby Elliptical Galaxies
• The Magnetic Field Across the Molecular Warped Disk of Centaurus A
• Dust and Ionized Gas Association in E/S0 Galaxies with Dust Lanes: Clues to their Origin
• Star Formation Efficiencies at Giant Molecular Cloud Scales in the Molecular Disk of the Elliptical Galaxy NGC 5128 (Centaurus A)
• ALMA Observations of the Physical and Chemical Conditions in Centaurus A
• The physical characteristics of the gas in the disk of Centaurus A using the Herschel Space Observatory
• Uncovering the kiloparsec-scale stellar ring of NGC5128
• A Giant Molecular Cloud Catalog in the Molecular Disk of the Elliptical Galaxy NGC 5128 (Centaurus A)
• The Dusty Disk of the Early Galaxy NGC 3656
• Molecular absorption in Cen A on VLBI scales
• 3.3 μm PAH observations of the central kiloparsecs of Centaurus A