We study for the first time the complete sub-millimeter spectra (450 GHz to 1550 GHz) of a sample of nearby active galaxies observed with the SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectrometer (SPIRE/FTS) onboard Herschel. The CO ladder (from Jup = 4 to 12) is the most prominent spectral feature in this range. These CO lines probe warm molecular gas that can be heated by ultraviolet photons, shocks, or X-rays originated in the active galactic nucleus or in young star-forming regions. In these proceedings we investigate the physical origin of the CO emission using the averaged CO spectral line energy distribution (SLED) of six Seyfert galaxies. We use a radiative transfer model assuming an isothermal homogeneous medium to estimate the molecular gas conditions. We also compare this CO SLED with the predictions of photon and X-ray dominated region (PDR and XDR) models.
@article{arxiv.1301.3365,
title = {Mid-J CO Emission in Nearby Seyfert Galaxies},
author = {M. Pereira-Santaella and L. Spinoglio and G. Busquet and J. Glenn and K. Isaak and J. Kamenetzky and N. Rangwala and M. R. P. Schirm and M. Baes and M. J. Barlow and A. Boselli and A. Cooray and D. Cormier},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1301.3365},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
Proceedings of the Torus Workshop 2012 held at the University of Texas at San Antonio, 5-7 December 2012. C. Packham, R. Mason, and A. Alonso-Herrero (eds.); 6 pages, 3 figures