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The outer dusty edge of accretion disks in active galactic nuclei

Landt, Hermine

Authors



Abstract

Recent models for the inner structure of active galactic nuclei (AGN) aim at connecting the outer region of the accretion disk with the broad-line region and dusty torus through a radiatively accelerated, dusty outflow. Such an outflow not only requires the outer disk to be dusty and thus predicts disk sizes beyond the self-gravity limit but requires the presence of nuclear dust with favorable properties. Here, we investigate a large sample of type 1 AGN by near-infrared (near-IR) cross-dispersed spectroscopy with the aim to constrain the astrochemistry, location, and geometry of the nuclear hot dust region. Assuming a thermal equilibrium for optically thin dust, we derive the luminosity-based dust radius for different grain properties using our measurement of the temperature. We combine our results with independent dust radius measurements from reverberation mapping and interferometry, and show that large dust grains that can provide the necessary opacity for the outflow are ubiquitous in AGN. Using our estimates of the dust covering factor, we investigate the dust geometry using the effects of the accretion disk anisotropy. A flared disk-like structure for the hot dust is favored. Finally, we discuss the implication of our results for the dust radius-luminosity plane.

Citation

Landt, H. (2023). The outer dusty edge of accretion disks in active galactic nuclei. Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, 10, 1256088. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2023.1256088

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Sep 5, 2023
Online Publication Date Sep 25, 2023
Publication Date 2023
Deposit Date Oct 18, 2023
Publicly Available Date Oct 18, 2023
Journal Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences
Electronic ISSN 2296-987X
Publisher Frontiers Media
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 10
Pages 1256088
DOI https://doi.org/10.3389/fspas.2023.1256088
Keywords active galactic nuclei, quasars, dust continuum emission, dust physics, near-infrared astronomy
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1797831

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2023 Landt. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.





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