| | |
| | |
Stat |
Members: 3643 Articles: 2'488'730 Articles rated: 2609
29 March 2024 |
|
| | | |
|
Article overview
| |
|
Possible evidence for a common radial structure in nearby AGN tori | Makoto Kishimoto
; Sebastian F. Hoenig
; Konrad R. W. Tristram
; Gerd Weigelt
; | Date: |
10 Dec 2008 | Abstract: | We present a quantitative and relatively model-independent way to assess the
radial structure of nearby AGN tori. These putative tori have been studied with
long-baseline infrared (IR) interferometry, but the spatial scales probed are
different for different objects. They are at various distances and also have
different physical sizes which apparently scale with the luminosity of the
central engine. Here we look at interferometric visibilities as a function of
spatial scales normalized by the size of the inner torus radius R_in. This
approximately eliminates luminosity and distance dependence and, thus, provides
a way to uniformly view the visibilities observed for various objects and at
different wavelengths. We can construct a composite visibility curve over a
large range of spatial scales if different tori share a common radial
structure. The currently available observations do suggest model-independently
a common radial surface brightness distribution in the mid-IR that is roughly
of a power-law form r^-2 as a function of radius r, and extends to ~100 times
R_in. Taking into account the temperature decrease toward outer radii with a
simple torus model, this corresponds to the radial surface density distribution
of dusty material directly illuminated by the central engine roughly in the
range between r^0 and r^-1. This should be tested with further data. | Source: | arXiv, 0812.1964 | Services: | Forum | Review | PDF | Favorites |
|
|
No review found.
Did you like this article?
Note: answers to reviews or questions about the article must be posted in the forum section.
Authors are not allowed to review their own article. They can use the forum section.
browser claudebot
|
| |
|
|
|
| News, job offers and information for researchers and scientists:
| |