Dense molecular gas in nearby gas-rich active galaxies
We present 3-mm observations obtained with the Institut de Radioastronomie Millimetrique (IRAM) 30-m telescope for 10 nearby gas-rich active galaxies spanning three orders of magnitude in infrared luminosity. Emission lines of HCO+(1–0), HCN(1–0) and C2H(1–0) were simultaneously detected in most galaxies of our sample. We also tentatively detected the rare isotopic species H13CN, HC15N and H13CO+ in up to four galaxies (IC 694, NGC 3690, NGC 4258 and NGC 6240). Our estimation shows that the optical depth of HCN is low to moderate in these galaxies (τ∼ 1–5). After comparing the intensity ratios of different molecular emission lines (HCN/HCO+, C2H/HCN and C2H/HCO+) with the infrared luminosity (LIR), we find that in the infrared luminous sample of five composite (AGN+starburst) galaxies these ratios vary with LIR: the HCN/HCO+ ratio increases with LIR, which is consistent with previous studies, while there is a slight trend in the composite galaxies that both C2H/HCN and C2H/HCO+ ratios decrease with increasing LIR. Although our sample is limited, this trend may possibly imply a relation between the overall gas density and the infrared luminosity of galaxies.

title: P CYGNI PROFILES OF MOLECULAR LINES TOWARD ARP 220 NUCLEI
abstract: We report ~100 pc (0farcs3) resolution observations of (sub)millimeter HCO+ and CO lines in the ultraluminous infrared galaxy Arp 220. The lines peak at two merger nuclei, with HCO+ being more spatially concentrated than CO. Asymmetric line profiles with blueshifted absorption and redshifted emission are discovered in HCO+(3-2) and (4-3) toward the two nuclei and in CO(3-2) toward one nucleus. We suggest that these P Cygni profiles are due to ~100 km s–1 outward motion of molecular gas from the nuclei. This gas is most likely outflowing from the inner regions of the two nuclear disks rotating around individual nuclei, clearing the shroud around the luminosity sources there.

title: LARGE-SCALE KINEMATICS, ASTROCHEMISTRY, AND MAGNETIC FIELD STUDIES OF MASSIVE STAR-FORMING REGIONS THROUGH HC3N, HNC, AND C2H MAPPINGS
abstract: We have mapped 27 massive star-forming regions associated with water masers using three dense gas tracers: HC3N 10-9, HNC 1-0, and C2H 1-0. The FWHM sizes of HNC clumps and C2H clumps are about 1.5 and 1.6 times higher than those of HC3N, respectively, which can be explained by the fact that HC3N traces more dense gas than HNC and C2H. We found evidence for an increase in the optical depth of C2H with a "radius" from the center to the outer regions in some targets, supporting the chemical model of C2H. The C2H optical depth is found to decline as molecular clouds evolve to a later stage, suggesting that C2H might be used as a "chemical clock" for molecular clouds. The large-scale kinematic structure of clouds was investigated with three molecular lines. All of these sources show significant velocity gradients. The magnitudes of gradient are found to increase toward the inner region, indicating the differential rotation of clouds. Both the ratio of rotational to gravitational energy and the specific angular momentum seem to decrease toward the inner region, implying the obvious angular momentum transfer, which might be caused by magnetic braking. The average magnetic field strength and number density of molecular clouds is derived using the uniform magnetic sphere model. The derived magnetic field strengths range from 3 to 88 mu G, with a median value of 13 mu G. The mass-to-flux ratio of the molecular cloud is calculated to be much higher than the critical value with derived parameters, which agrees well with numerical simulations.

title: CS 5-4 survey toward nearby IR bright galaxies
abstract: With the observations of the CS 5-4 line toward a sample of 24 infrared bright galaxies using HHSMT, we detected CS 5-4 emission in 14 galaxies, including 12 ULIRGs/LIRGs and 2 nearby normal galaxies. As a good dense gas tracer, which has been well used for studying star formation in the Milky Way, CS 5-4 can trace the active star forming gas in galaxies. The correlation between CS 5-4 luminosity, which is estimated with detected CS 5-4 line emission, and infrared luminosity in these 14 galaxies is fitted with correlation coefficient of 0.939 and the slope close to unity. This correlation confirmed that dense gas, which is closely linked to star formation, is very important for understanding star formation in galaxies.

title: UNVEILING THE PHYSICAL PROPERTIES AND KINEMATICS OF MOLECULAR GAS IN THE ANTENNAE GALAXIES (NGC 4038/9) THROUGH HIGH-RESOLUTION CO (J=3-2) OBSERVATIONS
abstract: We present a similar to 1 '' (100 pc) resolution (CO)-C-12 (3-2) map of the nearby intermediate-stage interacting galaxy pair NGC 4038/9 (the Antennae galaxies) obtained with the Submillimeter Array. We find that half the CO (3-2) emission originates in the overlap region where most of the tidally induced star formation had been previously found in shorter wavelength images, with the rest being centered on each of the nuclei. The gross distribution is consistent with lower resolution single-dish images, but we show for the first time the detailed distribution of the warm and dense molecular gas across this galaxy pair at resolutions comparable to the size of a typical giant molecular complex. While we find that 58% (33/57) of the spatially resolved Giant Molecular Associations (a few x 100 pc) are located in the overlap region, only <= 30% spatially coincides with the optically detected star clusters, suggesting that the bulk of the CO (3-2) emission traces the regions with very recent or near future star formation activity. The spatial distribution of the CO (3-2)/CO (1-0) integrated brightness temperature ratios mainly ranges between 0.3 and 0.6, which suggests that on average the CO (3-2) line in the Antennae is not completely thermalized and similar to the average values of nearby spirals. A higher ratio is seen in both nuclei and the southern complexes in the overlap region. A higher radiation field associated with intense star formation can account for the nucleus of NGC 4038 and the overlap region, but the nuclear region of NGC 4039 shows relatively little star formation or active galactic nucleus activity and cannot be easily explained. We show kinematical evidence that the high line ratio in NGC 4039 is possibly caused by gas inflow into the counter-rotating central disk.

title: CO observation of SNR IC 443
abstract: We present our 12CO and 13CO mapping observations of SNR IC 443 interacting with molecular clouds. It is the first large-scale high-resolution 13CO mapping observation in the surrounding region. The morphologies of IC 443 in 12CO and 13CO are compared with the optical, infrared, Spitzer far-infrared, X-ray, and neutral atomic gas (HI). We also make comparison and analysis in the kinematics, using the date-cubes of 12CO, 13CO and HI, to help distinguish the complicated gas motions in the shocked regions. Based on the work of Wang & Scoville (1992), we present a new model to explain the coexistence of multiple shocks with different speeds in a pc-scale region at the central clump B. We test this new model by analyzing the HI and CO distribution in both velocity and space domain. We also establish the relationship between the dissociation rate of shocked molecular gas and the shock velocity in this region. Finally, we derive the optical depth of 12CO with the 13CO spectra in clump B, and discuss the validity of the assumption of optically thin emission for the shocked 12CO.

title: MICROWAVE MEASUREMENTS OF ENERGY LOST TO LONGITUDINAL MODES BY SINGLE ELECTRON BUNCHES TRAVERSING PERIODIC STRUCTURES
abstract: In the design of future linear colliders, it will be important to minimize the loss of beam energy due to the excitation of higher-order modes in the accelerator structure by single bunches of electrons or positrons. This loss is not only detrimental in itself but also gives rise to energy spectrum widening and transverse emittance growth. This paper describes microwave measurements made on disk-loaded and alternating-spoke structures to determine the loss to the longitudinal modes. In these measurements the Gaussian bunch is simulated by a current pulse of the same shape transmitted through the structure on an axial center conductor. Results to date are presented for the total longitudinal loss parameter per period K in volts per picocoulomb.

title: Are Seyfert 2 galaxies without polarized broad emission lines more obscured
abstract: New XMM-Newton data of seven Seyfert 2 galaxies with optical spectropolarimetric observations are presented. An analysis of the 0.5–10 keV spectra shows that four Seyfert 2 galaxies with polarized broad lines (PBLs) are absorbed by NH<1024 cm−2, while two of three Seyfert 2 galaxies without PBLs show evidence of Compton-thick obscuration, supporting the conclusion that Seyfert 2 galaxies without PBLs are more obscured than those with PBLs. Adding the measured obscuration indicators (NH, T ratio, and Fe Kα line EW) of six luminous AGNs to our previous sample improves the significance level of the difference in absorption from 92.3% to 96.3% for NH, 99.1% to 99.4% for T ratio, and 95.3% to 97.4% for Fe Kα line EW. The present results support and enhance the suggestions that the absence of PBLs in Seyfert 2 galaxies can be explained by larger viewing angles of the line of sight to the putative dusty torus, which leads to the obscuration of the broad-line scattering screen, as expected in the unification model.

title: The X-Ray Absorber in Broad Absorption Line Quasars
abstract: Recent observations of Broad Absorption Line (BAL) quasars demonstrated that the soft X-ray emission of these objects is extremely weak, and convincing evidence for very strong absorption by a high column density (~1023.5 cm-2) was obtained for PG 1411+442, even though it is one of the few BAL QSOs strongly detected in soft X-rays. This paper examines the ionization status and geometry of the X-ray absorber by combining the properties of the UV lines with the X-ray continuum absorption. We show that the gas has to have large column densities in ions of major UV absorption lines, such as C IV, N V, O VI, and Ne VIII, in order to have sufficient opacity around 0.2-0.35 keV. The UV absorption lines have to be saturated if the X-ray absorber intersects the line of sight to the UV continuum emission region. A uniformly covering UV and X-ray absorption model can be constructed for PG 1411+442, but in some other soft X-ray-detected BAL QSOs, such as PG 1001+054, the observed line optical depth is much lower than expected from the X-ray-absorbing material. We propose a scheme in which a substantial fraction of the line of sight to the continuum source may be covered by either an optically thick flow or clouds in a narrow velocity range, but in which the total covering factor of either the whole flow or all clouds is close to unity. The absorber can contribute significantly to the extremely highly ionized emission lines, such as O VI λλ1032/1037 and Ne VIII λλ770/780, if it covers a substantial fraction of solid angle and if the density is higher than 108 cm-3. However, it has very little impact on the medium- and low-ionization UV lines such as N V and C IV. The profiles of Ne VIII and O VI lines may be indicators for the kinematics of the X-ray absorber in QSOs. The observed Ne VIII line profiles in QSOs suggest that the velocity of the gas projected onto our line of sight is similar to that seen in the outflows of the UV BALs.

title: WHAT CONTROLS THE Fe II STRENGTH IN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI
abstract: We used a large, homogeneous sample of 4178 z <= 0.8 Seyfert 1 galaxies and QSOs selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to investigate the strength of Fe II emission and its correlation with other emission lines and physical parameters of active galactic nuclei. We find that the strongest correlations of almost all the emission-line intensity ratios and equivalent widths (EWs) are with the Eddington ratio (L/L-Edd), rather than with the continuum luminosity at 5100 angstrom (L-5100) or black hole mass (M-BH); the only exception is the EW of ultraviolet Fe II emission, which does not correlate at all with broad-line width, L-5100, M-BH, or L/L-Edd. By contrast, the intensity ratios of both the ultraviolet and optical Fe II emission to MgII lambda 2800 correlate quite strongly with L/L-Edd. Interestingly, among all the emission lines in the near-UV and optical studied in this paper (including MgII lambda 2800, H beta, and [O III]lambda 5007), the EW of narrow optical Fe II emission has the strongest correlation with L/L-Edd. We hypothesize that the variation of the emission-line strength in active galaxies is regulated by L/L-Edd because it governs the global distribution of the hydrogen column density of the clouds gravitationally bound in the line-emitting region, as well as its overall gas supply. The systematic dependence on L/L-Edd must be corrected when using the Fe II/MgII intensity ratio as a measure of the Fe/Mg abundance ratio to study the history of chemical evolution in QSO environments.

title: Probing the X-ray binary populations of the ring galaxy NGC 1291
abstract: We present Chandra studies of the X-ray binary (XRB) populations in the bulge and ring regions of the ring galaxy NGC 1291. We detect 169 X-ray point sources in the galaxy, 75 in the bulge and 71 in the ring, utilizing the four available Chandra observations totaling an effective exposure of 179 ks. We report photometric properties of these sources in a point-source catalog. There are Almost-Equal-To 40% of the bulge sources and Almost-Equal-To 25% of the ring sources showing >3{sigma} long-term variability in their X-ray count rate. The X-ray colors suggest that a significant fraction of the bulge ( Almost-Equal-To 75%) and ring ( Almost-Equal-To 65%) sources are likely low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). The spectra of the nuclear source indicate that it is a low-luminosity active galactic nucleus (AGN) with moderate obscuration; spectral variability is observed between individual observations. We construct 0.3-8.0 keV X-ray luminosity functions (XLFs) for the bulge and ring XRB populations, taking into account the detection incompleteness and background AGN contamination. We reach 90% completeness limits of Almost-Equal-To 1.5 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 37} and Almost-Equal-To 2.2 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 37} erg s{sup -1} for the bulge and ring populations, respectively. Both XLFs can be fit with a brokenmore » power-law model, and the shapes are consistent with those expected for populations dominated by LMXBs. We perform detailed population synthesis modeling of the XRB populations in NGC 1291, which suggests that the observed combined XLF is dominated by an old LMXB population. We compare the bulge and ring XRB populations, and argue that the ring XRBs are associated with a younger stellar population than the bulge sources, based on the relative overdensity of X-ray sources in the ring, the generally harder X-ray color of the ring sources, the overabundance of luminous sources in the combined XLF, and the flatter shape of the ring XLF.« less