Jet- and wind-driven ionized outflows in the superbubble and star-forming disk of NGC 3079

Jan, 2001
31 pages
Published in:
  • Astrophys.J. 555 (2001) 338
e-Print:

Citations per year

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Abstract: (arXiv)
HST WFPC2 images are presented that span the inner 19 kpc diameter of the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3079: they are combined with ground-based Halpha+[N II] Fabry-Perot spectra and VLA images of radio polarization vectors and rotation measures. Ionized gas filaments within 9 kpc diameter project ~3 kpc above the disk, with the brightest forming the 1 kpc diameter superbubble. They are often resolved into strands ~0.3 (25 pc) wide which emerge from the nuclear CO ring as five distinct gas streams with velocity gradients and dispersions of hundreds of km/s. One stream flows for 250 pc and aligns with the VLBI-scale radio jet, the other four are not connected to the jet, instead curving to the vertical 0.6 kpc above the galaxy disk, then dispersing in a spray of droplets each with ionized mass ~1000 sqrt(f) Msun (volume filling factor f > 0.003 from our data). Shredded clumps of disk gas form a similar structure in hydro models of a galaxy-scale wind. The pattern of magnetic fields and the gas kinematics also suggest a wind of mechanical luminosity 10^43 erg/s that has stagnated in the galaxy disk at radius ~800 pc, flared to larger radii with increasing height as the balancing ISM pressure reduces above the disk, and entrained dense clouds into a vortex. Total KE and momentum of the filaments are (0.4-5)x10^55 sqrt(f) ergs and (1.6-6)x10^47 sqrt(f) dyne s. A star-forming complex elsewhere in the galaxy shows a striking spray of linear filaments that extend for hundreds of parsecs.
  • ACTIVE GALAXIES
  • GALAXIES JETS
  • GALAXIES KINEMATICS
  • GALAXIES DYNAMICS
  • GALAXIES MAGNETIC FIELDS
  • ISM