Dynamical model of an obscuring clumpy torus in AGNs: I. Velocity and velocity dispersion maps for interpretation of ALMA observations

TL;DR

This paper presents a dynamical model of a clumpy torus in AGNs, using N-body simulations to interpret ALMA observations and estimate SMBH mass, revealing temperature stratification and velocity structures.

Contribution

The study introduces a detailed N-body simulation of a clumpy AGN torus, linking model velocity and temperature maps with ALMA observations for the first time.

Findings

Estimated SMBH mass of 5 million solar masses for NGC 1068.

Velocity dispersion peaks relate to the torus throat emission.

Temperature maps show stratification consistent with VLTI/MIDI data.

Abstract

We have developed the dynamical model of a clumpy torus in an active galactic nucleus (AGN) and compared to recent ALMA observations. We present $N$-body simulations of a torus in the field of a supermassive black hole (SMBH), made of up to $N=10^5$ gravitationally interacting clouds. As initial conditions, we choose random distributions of the orbital elements of the clouds with a cut-off in the inclination to mimic the presence of wind cones produced at the early AGN stage. When the torus reaches an equilibrium, it has a doughnut shape. We discuss the presence of box orbits. We have then constructed the velocity and velocity dispersion maps using the resulting distributions of the clouds at equilibrium. The effects of torus inclination and cloud sizes are duly analyzed. We discuss the obscuration effects of the clouds using a ray tracing simulation matching the model maps to ALMA resolution. By comparing the model with the observational maps of NGC 1068 we find that the SMBH mass is $M_\text{smbh}=5\times 10^6 M_\odot$ for the range of the torus inclination angles $45^\circ - 60^\circ$. We also construct the velocity dispersion maps for NGC 1326 and NGC 1672. They show that the peaks in the ALMA dispersion maps are related to the emission of the torus throat. Finally, we obtain the temperature distribution maps with parameters that correspond to our model velocity maps for NGC 1068. They show stratification in temperature distribution with the shape of the high temperature region as in the VLTI/MIDI map.