Monday, April 2, 2012

1203.6797 (T. Nikola et al.)

Mid-IR FORCAST/SOFIA Observations of M82    [PDF]

T. Nikola, T. L. Herter, W. D. Vacca, J. D. Adams, J. M. De Buizer, G. E. Gull, C. P. Henderson, L. D. Keller, M. R. Morris, J. Schoenwald, G. Stacey, A. Tielens
We present 75"x75" size maps of M82 at 6.4 micron, 6.6 micron, 7.7 micron, 31.5 micron, and 37.1 micron with a resolution of ~4" that we have obtained with the mid-IR camera FORCAST on SOFIA. We find strong emission from the inner 60" (~1kpc) along the major axis, with the main peak 5" west-southwest of the nucleus and a secondary peak 4" east-northeast of the nucleus. The detailed morphology of the emission differs among the bands, which is likely due to different dust components dominating the continuum emission at short mid-IR wavelengths and long mid-IR wavelengths. We include Spitzer-IRS and Herschel/PACS 70 micron data to fit spectral energy distribution templates at both emission peaks. The best fitting templates have extinctions of A_V = 18 and A_V = 9 toward the main and secondary emission peak and we estimated a color temperature of 68 K at both peaks from the 31 micron and 37 micron measurement. At the emission peaks the estimated dust masses are on the order of 10^{4} M_sun.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.6797

No comments:

Post a Comment