Three-dimensional radiative transfer models of clumpy tori in Seyfert galaxies

TL;DR

This paper presents a new 3D radiative transfer model of clumpy dust tori in Seyfert galaxies, highlighting differences from continuous models and successfully matching recent infrared observations.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel 3D Monte Carlo radiative transfer model for clumpy AGN dust tori, incorporating detailed cloud distributions and comparing results with observations.

Findings

Clumpy models show more temperature scatter than continuous models.

Cloud shadowing affects the 10 micron silicate feature appearance.

Model parameters can reproduce observed mid-infrared interferometric data.

Abstract

Tori of Active Galactic Nuclei are made up of a mixture of hot and cold gas, as well as dust. In order to protect the dust grains from destruction by the hot gas as well as by the energetic radiation of the accretion disk, the dust is often assumed to be distributed in clouds. In our new 3D model of AGN dust tori, the torus is modelled as a wedge-shaped disk in which dusty clouds are randomly distributed, by taking the dust density distribution of the corresponding continuous model into account. We especially concentrate on the differences between clumpy and continuous models in terms of the temperature distributions, the surface brightness distributions and interferometric visibilities, as well as spectral energy distributions. To this end, we employ radiative transfer calculations with the help of the 3D Monte Carlo code MC3D. In a second step, interferometric visibilities are calculated from the simulated surface brightness distributions, which can be directly compared to observations with the MIDI instrument. The radial temperature distributions of clumpy models possess significantly enhanced scatter compared to the continuous cases. Even at large distances, clouds can be heated directly by the central accretion disk. The existence of the silicate 10 micron-feature in absorption or in emission depends sensitively on the distribution, the size and optical depth of clouds in the innermost part of the torus, due to shadowing effects of clouds there. This explains failure and success of previous modelling efforts of clumpy tori. After adapting the parameters of our clumpy standard model to the circumstances of the Seyfert 2 Circinus galaxy, it can qualitatively explain recent mid-infrared interferometric observations performed with MIDI, as well as high resolution spectral data.