English

HCN to HCO^+ Millimeter Line Diagnostics of AGN Molecular Torus I : Radiative Transfer Modeling

Astrophysics 2009-11-13 v1

Abstract

We explore millimeter line diagnostics of an obscuring molecular torus modeled by a hydrodynamic simulation with three-dimensional nonLTE radiative transfer calculations. Based on the results of high-resolution hydrodynamic simulation of the molecular torus around an AGN, we calculate intensities of HCN and HCO^{+} rotational lines as two representative high density tracers. The three-dimensional radiative transfer calculations shed light on a complicated excitation state in the inhomogeneous torus, even though a spatially uniform chemical structure is assumed. Our results suggest that HCN must be much more abundant than HCO^{+} in order to obtain a high ratio (RHCN/HCO+2R_{HCN/HCO+}\sim 2) observed in some of the nearby galaxies. There is a remarkable dispersion in the relation between integrated intensity and column density, indicative of possible shortcomings of HCN(1-0) and HCO^{+}(1-0) lines as high density tracers. The internal structures of the inhomogeneous molecular torus down to subparsec scale in external galaxies will be revealed by the forthcoming Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The three-dimensional radiative transfer calculations of molecular lines with high-resolution hydrodynamic simulation prove to be a powerful tool to provide a physical basis for molecular line diagnostics of the central regions of external galaxies.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0708.1045,
  title  = {HCN to HCO^+ Millimeter Line Diagnostics of AGN Molecular Torus I : Radiative Transfer Modeling},
  author = {Masako Yamada and Keiichi Wada and Kohji Tomisaka},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0708.1045},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

29 pages, 13 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ, For high resolution figures see http://alma.mtk.nao.ac.jp/~masako/MS72533v2.pdf