Infrared view of the multiphase ISM in NGC 253 II. Modelling the ionised and neutral atomic gas

TL;DR

This study models the physical conditions of the interstellar medium in NGC 253's nucleus using multi-wavelength data, revealing key parameters like gas densities, metallicities, and phase masses, with minimal influence from an active galactic nucleus.

Contribution

It introduces a probabilistic modeling approach combining Cloudy simulations and spectroscopic data to characterize the ISM in a starburst galaxy's nucleus.

Findings

ISM metallicity is solar.

Mean gas density is ~230 cm^-3.

Masses of different gas phases are quantified.

Abstract

Context. Multi-wavelength studies of galaxies and galactic nuclei allow us to build a relatively more complete picture of the interstellar medium (ISM), especially in the dusty regions of starburst galaxies. An understanding of the physical processes in nearby galaxies can assist in the study of more distant sources at higher redshifts, which cannot be resolved. Aims. We aimed to use observations presented in the first part of this series of papers to model the physical conditions of the ISM in the nuclear region of NGC 253, in order to obtain primary parameters such as gas densities and metallicities. From the created model we further calculated secondary parameters such as gas masses of the different phases, and estimated the fraction of [C II] 158 um from the different phases, which allowed us to probe the nuclear star-formation rate. Methods. To compare theory with our observations we used MULTIGRIS, a probabilistic tool that determines probabilities for certain ISM parameters from a grid of Cloudy models together with a set of spectroscopic lines. Results. We find that the hypothetical active galactic nucleus within NGC 253 has only a minor impact compared to the starburst on the heating of the ISM as probed by the observed lines. We characterise the ISM and obtain parameters such as a solar metallicity, a mean density of ~230cm-3 , an ionisation parameter of log U = -3, and an age of the nuclear cluster of ~2 Myr. Furthermore, we estimate the masses of the ionised (3.8 x 10^6 M_sol ), neutral atomic (9.1 x 10^6 M_sol ), and molecular (2.0 x 10^8 M_sol ) gas phases as well as the dust mass (1.8 x 10^6 M_sol ) in the nucleus of NGC 253.