Gemini Observations of Disks and Jets in Young Stellar Objects and in Active Galaxies

TL;DR

This paper reports initial near-infrared spectroscopic observations of disks and jets in young stellar objects and active galaxies, revealing accretion disks, black hole masses, ionization cones, and bipolar outflows.

Contribution

It provides new high-resolution infrared observations of disks and jets in both stellar and galactic contexts, including black hole mass estimates and outflow structures.

Findings

Detection of accretion disks and black hole masses in active galaxies.

Observation of ionization cones dominated by photoionization.

Identification of bipolar outflows in young stellar objects.

Abstract

We present first results from the Near-infrared Integral Field Spectrograph (NIFS) located at Gemini North. For the active galaxies Cygnus A and Perseus A we observe rotationally-supported accretion disks and adduce the existence of massive central black holes and estimate their masses. In Cygnus A we also see remarkable high-excitation ionization cones dominated by photoionization from the central engine. In the T-Tauri stars HV Tau C and DG Tau we see highly-collimated bipolar outflows in the [Fe II] 1.644 micron line, surrounded by a slower molecular bipolar outflow seen in the H_2 lines, in accordance with the model advocated by Pyo et al. (2002).