Investigating the nuclear activity of barred spiral galaxies : the case of NGC 1672

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL(2011)

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摘要
We have performed an X-ray study of the nearby barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672, primarily to ascertain the effect of the bar on its nuclear activity. We use both Chandra and XMM-Newton observations to investigate its X-ray properties, together with supporting high-resolution optical imaging data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), infrared imaging from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and Australia Telescope Compact Array ground-based radio data. We detect 28 X-ray sources within the D-25 area of the galaxy; many are spatially correlated with star formation in the bar and spiral arms, and two are identified as background galaxies in the HST images. Nine of the X-ray sources are ultraluminous X-ray sources, with the three brightest (L-X > 5 x 10(39) erg s(-1)) located at the ends of the bar. With the spatial resolution of Chandra, we are able to show for the first time that NGC 1672 possesses a hard (Gamma similar to 1.5) nuclear X-ray source with a 2-10 keV luminosity of 4 x 10(38) erg s(-1). This is surrounded by an X-ray-bright circumnuclear star-forming ring, comprised of point sources and hot gas, which dominates the 2-10 keV emission in the central region of the galaxy. The spatially resolved multiwavelength photometry indicates that the nuclear source is a low-luminosity active galactic nucleus (LLAGN), but with star formation activity close to the central black hole. A high-resolution multiwavelength survey is required to fully assess the impact of both large-scale bars and smaller-scale phenomena such as nuclear bars, rings, and nuclear spirals on the fueling of LLAGN.
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关键词
galaxies: evolution,galaxies: individual (NGC 1672),galaxies: nuclei,galaxies: spiral
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