Searching for Compact Obscured Nuclei in Compton-thick Active Galactic Nuclei

Searching for Compact Obscured Nuclei in Compton-thick Active Galactic Nuclei

Compact obscured nuclei (CONs) are heavily obscured infrared cores that have been found in local (ultra-)luminous infrared galaxies. They show bright emission from vibrationally excited rotational transitions of HCN, known as HCN-vib, and are thought to harbor Compton-thick (CT, N _H ≥ 10 ^24 cm ^−2...

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Main Authors: Makoto A. Johnstone, George C. Privon, Loreto Barcos-Muñoz, A.S. Evans, S. Aalto, Lee Armus, Franz E. Bauer, L. Blecha, J. S. Gallagher, S. König, Claudio Ricci, Ezequiel Treister, Cosima Eibensteiner, Kimberly L. Emig, Kara N. Green, Devaky Kunneriath, Jaya Nagarajan-Swenson, Alejandro Saravia, Ilsang Yoon
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2025-01-01
Series:The Astrophysical Journal
Subjects:
Active galactic nuclei
Active galaxies
Jets
Galaxy nuclei
Molecular gas
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adcecb
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Summary:Compact obscured nuclei (CONs) are heavily obscured infrared cores that have been found in local (ultra-)luminous infrared galaxies. They show bright emission from vibrationally excited rotational transitions of HCN, known as HCN-vib, and are thought to harbor Compton-thick (CT, N _H ≥ 10 ^24 cm ^−2 ) active galactic nuclei (AGNs) or extreme compact starbursts. We explore the potential evolutionary link between CONs and CT-AGNs by searching for CONs in hard-X-ray-confirmed CT-AGNs from the Great Observatories All-sky LIRG Survey (GOALS). Here, we present new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Band 6 observations that targeted HCN-vib emission in four hard-X-ray-confirmed CT-AGNs. We analyze these objects together with literature HCN-vib measurements of five additional hard-X-ray-confirmed CT-AGNs from the GOALS sample. We do not detect any CONs in this combined sample of nine CT-AGNs. We then explore a proposed evolutionary sequence in which CONs evolve into X-ray-detectable CT-AGNs once outflows and feedback reduce the column densities of the enshrouding gas. We find, however, no evidence of well-developed dense molecular outflows in the observed CT-AGNs. While this could suggest that CT-AGNs are not universally linked to CONs, it could also be explained by a short duty cycle for molecular outflows.
ISSN:1538-4357

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