James Agostino

We present spatially resolved parsec-scale measurements of nuclear conditions (gas density and kinetic temperature) relevant for black hole accretion rate predictions in the Seyfert 2 galaxy, NGC 1068. We inject these parameters into the prescription for a Bondi-like accretion model, then compare the resulting accretion rate prediction to the empirical accretion rate derived from hard X-ray observations. Cosmological simulations have spatial resolution ranging from ∼10 pc to approximately kiloparsec scales, and so for reasonable comparison we test these accretion rate predictions in pixel-sized radial steps out to 500 pc. Compared to warm H ₂ gas, CO gas is the dominant mass carrier close to the SMBH. We find that the Bondi accretion rate ( M ̇ Bondi ) of cold molecular gas alone (measured using CO) overestimates the true accretion rate by up to 14 dex in a small aperture ( r ≲5 pc) around the black hole, and by at least 8 dex inside large apertures ( r ≲500 pc). These results are the first in a series of direct tests of accretion rate prescriptions, and they suggest that using a Bondi accretion formalism to model supermassive black hole accretion in Seyfert 2 galaxies may lead to overestimated accretion rates in simulations.

We present measurements of the cool molecular gas mass around the nuclei of two gas-rich mergers, III Zw 035 and IRAS F01364−1042, whose enclosed masses ( M _enc ) within the central 40–80 pc would be overmassive if attributed entirely to the supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass and compared to SMBH–galaxy scaling relations. Our gas mass measurements are derived from Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Band 6 long-baseline observations of CO( J = 2–1) and 230 GHz continuum emission at 14–20 pc resolution, which probes below the resolving limit of the previous black hole mass measurements. Subtracting molecular gas mass from these enclosed masses is not enough to reconcile with black hole–galaxy relationships, but independently measuring M _enc using the cold CO(2–1) gas does shift the black holes down to their expected values. Still, these ALMA data reveal respective molecular gas masses of ∼3 × 10 ⁷ to ∼6 × 10 ⁸ M _⊙ within 70 pc of these black holes, which could challenge some black hole accretion models that assume nuclear gas like this has no angular momentum.

We present nuclear (100–150 pc) spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for a sample of 23 nearby luminous infrared galaxies hosting a total of 28 nuclei. We gather aperture photometry from high-resolution X-ray to submillimeter data for each nuclear region localized by Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations of the dust continuum. We model the broadband SEDs using X-CIGALE. Binning the merging systems by interaction class, we find that the active galactic nucleus (AGN) fraction (fraction of AGN infrared luminosity to total infrared luminosity) appears enhanced in the late- and post-merger stages compared to the early-merger stage. Examining the relationship between X-ray emission and infrared emission of the nuclear regions, we find that the infrared emission in the nuclei is dominated by dust and AGNs, with minimal contribution from stars. We also find that nuclear regions have higher X-ray hardness ratios than the host galaxies globally among both the AGN and non-AGN population. We highlight the similarities and differences in the SEDs of dual nuclei in five closely separated late-stage merging systems: Arp 220 (d _nuc ∼ 0.5 kpc), NGC 6240 (d _nuc ∼ 1 kpc), IRAS 07251−0248 (d _nuc ∼ 2 kpc), IRAS F12112+0305 (d _nuc ∼ 4 kpc), and IRAS F14348+1447 (d _nuc ∼ 6 kpc). The SEDs for these resolved pairs are distinct, suggesting that the AGN state is much more susceptible to the stellar and dust content within the immediate circumnuclear (<150 pc) environment than to the host’s global infrared luminosity or merger stage.

The Virgo Filament Survey (VFS) is a comprehensive study of galaxies that reside in the extended filamentary structures surrounding the Virgo Cluster, out to 12 virial radii. The primary goal is to characterize all of the dominant baryonic components within galaxies and to understand whether and how they are affected by the filament environment. A key constituent of VFS is a narrowband Hα imaging survey of over 600 galaxies, VFS-Hα. The Hα images reveal detailed, resolved maps of the ionized gas and massive star formation. This imaging is particularly powerful as a probe of environmentally induced quenching because different physical processes affect the spatial distribution of star formation in different ways. In this paper, we present the first results from the VFS-Hα for the NGC 5364 group, a low-mass ( log 10 ( M dyn / M ⊙ ) < 13 ) system located at the western edge of the Virgo III filament. We combine Hα imaging with resolved H i observations from MeerKAT for eight group members. These galaxies exhibit peculiar morphologies, including strong distortions in the stars and the gas, truncated H i and Hα disks, H i tails, extraplanar Hα emission, and off-center Hα emission. These signatures are suggestive of environmental processing such as tidal interactions, ram pressure stripping, and starvation. We quantify the role of ram pressure stripping expected in this group, and find that it can explain the cases of H i tails and truncated Hα for all but one of the disk-dominated galaxies. Our observations indicate that multiple physical mechanisms are disrupting the baryon cycle in these group galaxies.

We present nuclear (100-150 pc) spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for a sample of 23 nearby luminous infrared galaxies hosting a total of 28 nuclei. We gather aperture photometry from high-resolution X-ray to submillimeter data for each nuclear region localized by ALMA observations of the dust continuum. We model the broadband SEDs using X-CIGALE. Binning the merging systems by interaction class, we find that the AGN fraction (fraction of AGN infrared luminosity to total infrared luminosity) appears enhanced in the late- and post-merger stages compared to early-stage mergers. Examining the relationship between X-ray emission and infrared emission of the nuclear regions, we find that the infrared emission in the nucleus is dominated by dust and AGN, with minimal contribution from stars. We also find that nuclear regions have higher X-ray hardness ratios than the host galaxies globally among both the AGN and non-AGN population. We highlight the similarities and differences in the SEDs of dual nuclei in five closely separated late-stage merging systems: Arp 220 ($d_\mathrm{nuc} \sim$ 0.5 kpc), NGC 6240 ($d_\mathrm{nuc} \sim$ 1 kpc), IRAS 07251-0248 ($d_\mathrm{nuc} \sim$ 2 kpc), IRAS F12112+0305 ($d_\mathrm{nuc} \sim$ 4 kpc), and IRAS F14348+1447 ($d_\mathrm{nuc} \sim$ 6 kpc). The SEDs for these resolved pairs are distinct, suggesting that the AGN state is much more susceptible to the stellar and dust content within the immediate circumnuclear ($<$150 pc) environment than to the host's global infrared luminosity or merger stage.