Optical and mid-infrared neon abundance determinations in star-forming regions

OLI L. DORS JR, GUILLERMO F. HÄGELE, MÓNICA V. CARDACI, ENRIQUE PÉREZ-MONTERO, ÂNGELA C. KRABBE, JOSÉ M. VÍLCHEZ, DINALVA A. SALES, ROGÉRIO RIFFEL AND ROGEMAR A. RIFFEL

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2013 vol. 432 p. 2512 - 2528

0035-8711

We investigate the excitation mechanisms of near-infrared [Fe II] and H2 emission lines observed in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). We built a photoionization model grid considering a two-component continuum: one component accounts for the `big bump´ component peaking at 1Ryd and another represents the X-ray source that dominates the continuum emission at high energies. Photoionization models considering as ionizing source a spectral energy distribution obtained from photometric data of Seyfert 2 Mrk 1066 taken from the literature were considered. Results of these models were compared with a large sample of observational long-slit and Integral field Unit (IFU) spectroscopy data of the nuclear region for a sample of active objects. We found that the correlation between the observational [Fe II] lambda 1.2570μm/Pa beta and H2 lambda 2.1218μm/Brγ is well reproduced by our models, as are the relationships that involve the H2 emission-line ratios observed in the spectroscopic data. We conclude that heating by X-rays produced by active nuclei can be considered a common and very important mechanism of excitation of [Fe II] and H2.