Searching for Compact Obscured Nuclei in Compton Thick AGN
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| author | Johnstone, Makoto A. Privon, George C. Barcos-Munoz, Loreto Evans, A. S. Aalto, S. Armus, Lee Bauer, Franz E. Blecha, L. Gallagher, J. S. König, S. Ricci, Claudio Treister, Ezequiel Eibensteiner, Cosima Emig, Kimberly L. Green, Kara N. Kunneriath, Devaky Nagarajan-Swenson, Jaya Saravia, Alejandro Yoon, Ilsang |
| author_facet | Johnstone, Makoto A. Privon, George C. Barcos-Munoz, Loreto Evans, A. S. Aalto, S. Armus, Lee Bauer, Franz E. Blecha, L. Gallagher, J. S. König, S. Ricci, Claudio Treister, Ezequiel Eibensteiner, Cosima Emig, Kimberly L. Green, Kara N. Kunneriath, Devaky Nagarajan-Swenson, Jaya Saravia, Alejandro Yoon, Ilsang |
| contents | Compact Obscured Nuclei (CONs) are heavily obscured infrared cores that have been found in local (ultra)luminous infrared galaxies (U/LIRGs). They show bright emission from vibrationally excited rotational transitions of HCN, known as HCN-vib, and are thought to harbor Compton Thick (CT, $N_{\text{H}} \geq 10^{24}$ cm$^{-2}$) active galactic nuclei (AGN) or extreme compact starbursts. We explore the potential evolutionary link between CONs and CT AGN by searching for CONs in hard X-ray-confirmed CT AGN 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 AGN. We analyze these objects together with literature HCN-vib measurements of five additional hard X-ray-confirmed CT AGN from the GOALS sample. We do not detect any CONs in this combined sample of nine CT AGN. We then explore a proposed evolutionary sequence in which CONs evolve into X-ray-detectable CT AGN 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 AGN. While this could suggest that CT AGN are not universally linked to CONs, it could also be explained by a short duty cycle for molecular outflows. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_15248 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Searching for Compact Obscured Nuclei in Compton Thick AGN Johnstone, Makoto A. Privon, George C. Barcos-Munoz, Loreto Evans, A. S. Aalto, S. Armus, Lee Bauer, Franz E. Blecha, L. Gallagher, J. S. König, S. Ricci, Claudio Treister, Ezequiel Eibensteiner, Cosima Emig, Kimberly L. Green, Kara N. Kunneriath, Devaky Nagarajan-Swenson, Jaya Saravia, Alejandro Yoon, Ilsang Astrophysics of Galaxies Compact Obscured Nuclei (CONs) are heavily obscured infrared cores that have been found in local (ultra)luminous infrared galaxies (U/LIRGs). They show bright emission from vibrationally excited rotational transitions of HCN, known as HCN-vib, and are thought to harbor Compton Thick (CT, $N_{\text{H}} \geq 10^{24}$ cm$^{-2}$) active galactic nuclei (AGN) or extreme compact starbursts. We explore the potential evolutionary link between CONs and CT AGN by searching for CONs in hard X-ray-confirmed CT AGN 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 AGN. We analyze these objects together with literature HCN-vib measurements of five additional hard X-ray-confirmed CT AGN from the GOALS sample. We do not detect any CONs in this combined sample of nine CT AGN. We then explore a proposed evolutionary sequence in which CONs evolve into X-ray-detectable CT AGN 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 AGN. While this could suggest that CT AGN are not universally linked to CONs, it could also be explained by a short duty cycle for molecular outflows. |
| title | Searching for Compact Obscured Nuclei in Compton Thick AGN |
| topic | Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.15248 |