The Galaxy Activity, Torus, and outflow Survey (GATOS) XIII: Coupling Driven H2 Excitation in Seyferts

TL;DR

This study uses JWST/MIRI observations to analyze the relationship between ionized outflows, shock excitation, and molecular gas temperature in the nuclear regions of Seyfert galaxies, revealing significant AGN feedback interactions.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the coupling between ionized outflows and H2 excitation, highlighting spatial correlations and the impact of AGN feedback in Seyferts.

Findings

Strong spatial correlation between [Fe II] emission and H2 temperature.

Ionized outflow rate correlates with molecular gas temperature.

No significant correlation between jet cavity power and outflow or temperature.

Abstract

We utilize JWST/MIRI IFU observations from the Galaxy Activity, Torus and Outflow Survey (GATOS) to investigate the diverse range of ionized outflow rates of obscured AGN with similar bolometric luminosity and explore potential associations with AGN feedback. We explore spatial correlations between ionized emission potentially associated with fast shocks ([Fe II]5.34{\mu}m) and the excitation of H2. We further constrain our investigation to the inner 400 pc (the nuclear and circumnuclear regions r < 200 pc), and estimate the excitation temperature and column density of H2 assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) and using the S(1) to S(8) rotational H2 emission lines visible to JWST/MIRI spectroscopy. We report the molecular gas temperature of the deprojected 400 pc nuclear region to correlate with the ionized mass outflow rate. We also observe the stronger degree of spatial correlation between [Fe II]5.34um emission and H2 gas temperature. We observe regions of enhanced [Fe II]5.34{\mu}m / [Ar II]6.99{\mu}m spatially coincident with the ionization cones of objects with higher ionized outflow rate and [Fe II]5.34{\mu}m / [Ar II]6.99{\mu}m in the deprojected 400 pc nuclear region to scale positively with both ionized outflow rate and estimated molecular gas temperature. We do not observe the estimated jet cavity power within the central 400 pc to strongly correlate with the ionized mass outflow rate or molecular gas temperature of the nuclear region. We take the preceding observations to suggest a higher degree of interaction between AGN outflows and the circumnuclear disk.