Overluminous HNC Line Emission in Arp220, NGC4418 and Mrk231 - Global IR Pumping or XDRs?

TL;DR

This study investigates why HNC emission lines are brighter than HCN in certain ultraluminous galaxies, exploring IR pumping and XDR effects as potential explanations for this unexpected phenomenon.

Contribution

It presents the first detection of HNC J=4-3 in Mrk231 and proposes two novel mechanisms—IR pumping and XDR influence—to explain overluminous HNC in warm, extreme galactic nuclei.

Findings

HNC J=3-2 emission exceeds HCN in the studied galaxies.

HNC J=4-3 detected in Mrk231.

IR pumping and XDRs likely influence HNC brightness in these environments.

Abstract

We find that the HNC J=3-2 emission is brighter than the HCN 3-2 emission by factors of 1.5 to 2.3 in the ultraluminous mergers Arp220 and Mrk231 and the luminous IR galaxy NGC4418. We furthermore report the detection of HNC J=4-3 in Mrk231. Overluminous HNC emission is unexpected in warm molecular gas in ultraluminous galaxies since I(HNC)>I(HCN) is usually taken as a signature of cold (10 - 20 K) dark clouds. Since the molecular gas of the studied galaxies is warm (T_k > 40 K) we present two alternative explanations to the overluminous HNC: a) HNC excitation is affected by pumping of the rotational levels through the mid-infrared continuum and b) XDRs (X-ray Dominated Regions) influence the abundances of HNC. HNC may become pumped at 21.5 micron brightness temperatures of 50 K, suggesting that HNC-pumping could be common in warm, ultraluminous galaxies with compact IR-nuclei.On the other hand, all three galaxies are either suspected of having buried AGN - or the presence of AGN is clear (Mrk231) - indicating that X-rays may affect the ISM chemistry. We conclude that both the pumping and XDR alternatives imply molecular cloud ensembles distinctly different from those of typical starforming regions in the Galaxy, or the ISM of less extreme starburst galaxies. The HNC molecule shows the potential of becoming an additional important tracer of extreme nuclear environments.