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1. The central parsec of NGC 3783: a rotating broad emission line region, asymmetric hot dust structure, and compact coronal line region

   https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202040061  

   Amorim, A. ; Bauböck, M. ; Brandner, W. ; Bolzer, M. ; Clénet, Y. ; Davies, R. ; de Zeeuw, P. T. ; Dexter, J. ; Drescher, A. ; Eckart, A. ; et al ( April 2021 , Astronomy & Astrophysics)

   null (Ed.)

   Using VLTI/GRAVITY and SINFONI data, we investigate the subparsec gas and dust structure around the nearby type 1 active galactic nucleus (AGN) hosted by NGC 3783. The K -band coverage of GRAVITY uniquely allows simultaneous analysis of the size and kinematics of the broad line region (BLR), the size and structure of the near-infrared(near-IR)-continuum-emitting hot dust, and the size of the coronal line region (CLR). We find the BLR, probed through broad Br γ emission, to be well described by a rotating, thick disc with a radial distribution of clouds peaking in the inner region. In our BLR model, the physical mean radius of 16 light-days is nearly twice the ten-day time-lag that would be measured, which closely matches the ten-day time-lag that has been measured by reverberation mapping. We measure a hot dust full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) size of 0.74 mas (0.14 pc) and further reconstruct an image of the hot dust, which reveals a faint (5% of the total flux) offset cloud that we interpret as an accreting or outflowing cloud heated by the central AGN. Finally, we directly measure the FWHM size of the nuclear CLR as traced by the [Ca  VIII ] and narrow Br γ line. We find a FWHM size of 2.2 mas (0.4 pc), fully in line with the expectation of the CLR located between the BLR and narrow line region. Combining all of these measurements together with larger scale near-IR integral field unit and mid-IR interferometry data, we are able to comprehensively map the structure and dynamics of gas and dust from 0.01 to 100 pc. 

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2. The impact of dust on the sizes of galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac380  

   Marshall, Madeline A. ; Wilkins, Stephen ; Di Matteo, Tiziana ; Roper, William J. ; Vijayan, Aswin P. ; Ni, Yueying ; Feng, Yu ; Croft, Rupert A. C. ( February 2022 , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   We study the sizes of galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization using a sample of ${\sim 100\, 000}$ galaxies from the BlueTides cosmological hydrodynamical simulation from z = 7 to 11. We measure the galaxy sizes from stellar mass and luminosity maps, defining the effective radius as the minimum radius that could enclose the pixels containing 50 per cent of the total mass/light in the image. We find an inverse relationship between stellar mass and effective half-mass radius, suggesting that the most massive galaxies are more compact and dense than lower mass galaxies, which have flatter mass distributions. We find a mildly negative relation between intrinsic far-ultraviolet luminosity and size, while we find a positive size–luminosity relation when measured from dust-attenuated images. This suggests that dust is the predominant cause of the observed positive size–luminosity relation, with dust preferentially attenuating bright sightlines resulting in a flatter emission profile and thus larger measured effective radii. We study the size–luminosity relation across the rest-frame ultraviolet and optical, and find that the slope decreases at longer wavelengths; this is a consequence of the relation being caused by dust, which produces less attenuation at longer wavelengths. We find that the far-ultraviolet size–luminosity relation shows mild evolution from z = 7 to 11, and galaxy size evolves with redshift as R ∝ (1 + z)−m, where m = 0.662 ± 0.009. Finally, we investigate the sizes of z = 7 quasar host galaxies, and find that while the intrinsic sizes of quasar hosts are small relative to the overall galaxy sample, they have comparable sizes when measured from dust-attenuated images.

    

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3. The bright supernova 1996cr in the circinus galaxy imaged with VLBI: shell structure with complex evolution

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad415  

   Bietenholz, Michael F. ; Bartel, Norbert ; Bauer, Franz E. ; Dwarkadas, Vikram V. ; Mtshweni, Leon ; Orquera-Rojas, Carlos ; Ellingsen, Simon ; Horiuchi, Shinji ; Tzioumis, Anastasios ( February 2023 , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   We present broad-band radio flux-density measurements supernova (SN) 1996cr, made with MeerKAT, ATCA, and ALMA, and images made from very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations with the Australian Long Baseline Array. The spectral energy distribution of SN 1996cr in 2020, at age t ∼8700 d, is a power-law, with flux density, S ∝ ν−0.588 ± 0.011 between 1 and 34 GHz, but may steepen at >35 GHz. The spectrum has flattened since t = 5370 d (2010). Also since t = 5370 d, the flux density has declined rapidly, with $S_{\rm 9 \, GHz} \propto t^{-2.9}$. The VLBI image at t = 8859 d shows an approximately circular structure with a central minimum reminiscent of an optically-thin spherical shell of emission. For a distance of 3.7 Mpc, the average outer radius of the radio emission at t = 8859 d was (5.1 ± 0.3) × 1017 cm, and SN 1996cr has been expanding with a velocity of 4650 ± 1060 km s−1 between t = 4307 and 8859 d. It must have undergone considerable deceleration before t = 4307 d. Deviations from a circular shell structure in the image suggest a range of velocities up to ∼7000 km s−1, and hint at the presence of a ring- or equatorial-belt-like structure rather than a complete spherical shell.

    

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4. Resolving the inner accretion flow towards the central supermassive black hole in SDSS J1339+1310

   https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202038770  

   Shalyapin, V. N. ; Goicoechea, L. J. ; Morgan, C. W. ; Cornachione, M. A. ; Sergeyev, A. V. ( February 2021 , Astronomy & Astrophysics)

   null (Ed.)

   We studied the accretion disc structure in the doubly imaged lensed quasar SDSS J1339+1310 using r -band light curves and UV-visible to near-IR spectra from the first 11 observational seasons after its discovery. The 2009−2019 light curves displayed pronounced microlensing variations on different timescales, and this microlensing signal permitted us to constrain the half-light radius of the 1930 Å continuum-emitting region. Assuming an accretion disc with an axis inclined at 60° to the line of sight, we obtained log( r 1/2 /cm) = 15.4 −0.4 +0.93 . We also estimated the central black hole mass from spectroscopic data. The width of the C  IV , Mg  II , and H β emission lines, and the continuum luminosity at 1350, 3000, and 5100 Å, led to log( M BH / M ⊙ ) = 8.6 ± 0.4. Thus, hot gas responsible for the 1930 Å continuum emission is likely orbiting a 4.0 × 10 8   M ⊙ black hole at an r 1/2 of only a few tens of Schwarzschild radii. 

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5. The IGRINS YSO Survey II: Veiling Spectra of Pre-main-sequence Stars in Taurus-Auriga

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac1dae  

   Kidder, Benjamin ; Mace, Gregory ; López-Valdivia, Ricardo ; Sokal, Kimberly ; Catlett, Victoria E. ; Gutiérrez, Miguel ; Tofflemire, Benjamin M. ; Jaffe, Daniel ( November 2021 , The Astrophysical Journal)

   Abstract We present measurements of the H- and K -band veiling for 141 young stellar objects (YSOs) in the Taurus-Auriga star-forming region using high-resolution spectra from the Immersion Grating Near-Infrared Spectrometer. In addition to providing measurements of r H and r K , we produce low-resolution spectra of the excess emission across the H and K bands. We fit temperatures to the excess spectra of 46 members of our sample and measure near-infrared excess temperatures ranging from 1200–2200 K, with an average of 1575 ± 225 K. We compare the luminosity of the excess continuum emission in Class II and Class III YSOs and find that a number of Class III sources display a significant amount of excess flux in the near-infrared. We conclude that the mid-infrared SED slope, and therefore young stellar object classification, is a poor predictor of the amount of near-infrared veiling. If the veiling arises in thermal emission from dust, its presence implies a significant amount of remaining inner-disk (<1 au) material in these Class III sources. We also discuss the possibility that the veiling effects could result from massive photospheric spots, unresolved binary companions, or accretion emission. Six low-mass members of our sample contain a prominent feature in their H -band excess spectra that is consistent with veiling from cool photospheric spots. 

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