NGC 1068 As Proving Ground for NIRISS AMI
Abstract
Ground-based imaging of the Narrow Line Region (NLR) of nearby Seyfert 2 Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN), NGC 1068, reveals substantial near-IR emission aligned along the axis of a biconical outflow. Clear evidence of dust emission at temperatures 700K imply a heating mechanism acting locally, at distances of few 10s pc away from the AGN central engine. At larger distances, the near-IR emission is roughly coincident with [OIII] emission observed from HST, and radio emission possibly due to a jet. Thus it has been suggested that a sheath of interacting material around the jet may be providing heating via photoionization. The highest angular resolution near-IR images, however, show a possible arc of emission, probably in the plane orthogonal to the jet, extremely close to the central point source ( 130mas). If real, the arc must be produced by mechanisms operating at the poorly-understood interface between the inflowing reservoir of material supplying the torus and central engine. Only NIRISS AMI observations can unambiguously detect or rule out the presence of the arc structure; we propose observations in F380M, F430M and F480M filters, yielding 65-70mas resolution across a sub-arcsecond field of view. We expect to measure the temperatures of a variety of clouds in the field, including the arc, with some objects as bright as L=7.7. The processes governing this region are critically responsible for the balance between inflowing material from the galaxy, outflowing material due to AGN feedback, and accretion onto the black hole itself. [abridged] Observation IDs: DOYON_80[00-11] Partially Seq non-int with Program ID: 1200 (PI: Rameau) Observation IDs: DOYON_400[0-5]
- Publication:
-
JWST Proposal. Cycle 1
- Pub Date:
- July 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017jwst.prop.1260F