Looking for extended nuclear emission in a sample of nearby QSOs

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution MIR observations of a nearby QSO to analyze its nuclear emission, finding it mostly unresolved and deriving its spectral energy distribution to better understand the torus properties.

Contribution

First high-resolution MIR imaging of Mrk 1383, providing detailed nuclear emission analysis and SED derivation to inform torus modeling in QSOs.

Findings

Most MIR emission is unresolved at ~600 pc scale.

Spectral energy distribution of the nucleus was successfully derived.

Results support the presence of a compact, unresolved torus.

Abstract

We present MIR sub-arcsec observations of Mrk 1383, a nearby QSO, part of a sample of nearby QSOs currently being observed with the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio de Canarias (GTC). The radial profile of the QSO is analyzed and we find that most of the MIR emission is unresolved (\theta ~ 0.4", 600 pc) and consistent with previous measurements from Spitzer (\theta ~ 4"). We derive the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the nuclear emission, relatively uncontaminated by starlight, combining measurements from the literature as a first step towards characterizing the torus parameters in this QSO.