Modeling the Strongest Silicate Emission Features of Local Type 1 AGNs

M. Martínez-Paredes, O. González-Martín, D. Esparza-Arredondo, M. Kim, A. Alonso-Herrero, Y. Krongold, T. Hoang, C. Ramos Almeida, I. Aretxaga, D. Dultzin, J. Hodgson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Scopus citations

Abstract

We measure the 10 and 18 μm silicate features in a sample of 67 local (z < 0.1) type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGN) with available Spitzer spectra dominated by nonstellar processes. We find that the 10 μm silicate feature peaks at 10.3-0.9 +0.7 μm with a strength (Sip = ln fp(spectrum)/fp(continuum)) of 0.11-0.36 +0.15, while the 18 μm one peaks at 17.3-0.7 +0.4 μm with a strength of 0.14-0.06 +0.06. We select from this sample sources with the strongest 10 μm silicate strength (σSi10μm > 0.28, 10 objects). We carry out a detailed modeling of the infrared spectrometer/Spitzer spectra by comparing several models that assume different geometries and dust composition: a smooth torus model, two clumpy torus models, a two-phase medium torus model, and a disk+outflow clumpy model. We find that the silicate features are well modeled by the clumpy model of Nenkova et al., and among all models, those including outflows and complex dust composition are the best. We note that even in AGN-dominated galaxies, it is usually necessary to add stellar contributions to reproduce the emission at the shortest wavelengths.

Original languageEnglish
Article number152
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume890
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 20 Feb 2020

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Modeling the Strongest Silicate Emission Features of Local Type 1 AGNs'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this