GOALS-JWST: Gas Dynamics and Excitation in NGC7469 revealed by NIRSpec
Abstract
We present new JWST-NIRSpec IFS data for the luminous infrared galaxy NGC7469: a nearby (70.6Mpc) active galaxy with a Sy 1.5 nucleus that drives a highly ionized gas outflow and a prominent nuclear star-forming ring. Using the superb sensitivity and high spatial resolution of the JWST instrument NIRSpec-IFS, we investigate the role of the Seyfert nucleus in the excitation and dynamics of the circumnuclear gas. Our analysis focuses on the [Fe ii], H2, and hydrogen recombination lines that trace the radiation/shocked-excited molecular and ionized ISM around the AGN. We investigate the gas excitation through H2/Br{\gamma} and [Fe ii]/Pa\b{eta} emission line ratios and find that photoionization by the AGN dominates within the central 300 pc of the galaxy and together with a small region show ing signatures of shock-heated gas; these shock-heated regions are likely associated with a compact radio jet. In addition, the velocity field and velocity dispersion maps reveal complex gas kinematics. Rotation is the dominant feature, but we also identify non-circular motions consistent with gas inflows as traced by the velocity residuals and the spiral pattern in the Pa{\alpha} velocity dispersion map. The inflow is consistent with the mass outflow rate and two orders of magnitude higher than the AGN accretion rate. The compact nuclear radio jet has enough power to drive the highly ionized outflow. This scenario suggests that the inflow and outflow are in a self-regulating feeding-feedback process, with a contribution from the radio jet helping to drive the outflow.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2308.00209,
title = {GOALS-JWST: Gas Dynamics and Excitation in NGC7469 revealed by NIRSpec},
author = {Marina Bianchin and Vivian U and Yiqing Song and Thomas S. -Y. Lai and Raymond P. Remigio and Loreto Barcos-Munoz and Tanio Diaz-Santos and Lee Armus and Hanae Inami and Kirsten L. Larson and Aaron S. Evans and Torsten Boker and Justin A. Kader and Sean T. Linden and Vassilis Charmandaris and Matthew A. Malkan and Jeff Rich and Thomas Bohn and Anne M. Medling and Sabrina Stierwalt and Joseph M. Mazzarella and David R. Law and George C. Privon and Susanne Aalto and Philip Appleton and Michael J. I. Brown and Victorine A. Buiten and Luke Finnerty and Christopher C. Hayward and Justin Howell and Kazushi Iwasawa and Francisca Kemper and Jason Marshall and Jed McKinney and Francisco Muller-Sanchez and Eric J. Murphy and Paul P. van der Werf and David B. Sanders and Jason Surace},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2308.00209},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
15 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ