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Determining

Talk given on Determining the Nature of Galactic Center Radio Source N3 at the closing session of the Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Research Symposium in August, 2018

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40 views8 pages

Determining

Talk given on Determining the Nature of Galactic Center Radio Source N3 at the closing session of the Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Research Symposium in August, 2018

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Anonymous MTIzg8I
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DETERMINING THE NATURE OF GALACTIC

CENTER RADIO SOURCE N3

R.A. DUNNAGAN1
D.A. LUDOVICI1, K.M. COLLEDGE1
N.O. BUTTERFIELD2, C.C. LANG3, A.G. GINSBURG2, R.L. MUTEL3, M.R. MORRIS4, N. JONES3, D. PARE3
1RHIT, 2NRAO, 3U–IOWA, 4UCLA
MOTIVATION AND OBSERVATION

• Radio Arc in the Galactic Center hosting N3


• Past observations of N3 inconclusive regarding its
nature
Above: VLA radio interferometer array. Photo Credit to NRAO

• Short-term and long-term variability using high


Below: Radio image of Galactic Center Region. Photo Credit to SARAO
Left: Radio Arc Region containing N3. Photo Credit to Ludovici et al.
2016 Fig. 1
resolution array
• 8 observations totaling 4 hours over two months Radio Arc
Sgr A

• Combined continuum and spectral line imaging


• Goal: Find if N3 is an AGN or micro-blazar

2
SPECTRAL LINES IN N3
• Imaged 9 spectral lines for 5 molecules in frequency range:

Molecules Detection Type


HC3N Yes Emission
CH3OH (6.669 GHz) Yes Absorption
HDO No N/A
H2CO Yes Absorption
CH3OH (other transitions) No N/A
OH No N/A

• Discover N3 was behind molecular cloud existing along the Above: Graph of Intensity v Velocity for methanol and formadehyde lines
line of sight to N3 rather than inside Below: Image of CH3N Emission

• Discover HC3N emission, likely stimulated emission from


N3 given its location and the transition observed, which
points toward the cloud having a density between 103 and
104 cm-3

3
VARIABILITY IN N3

• Variability studies are ongoing


• From rough graphs of Intensity v Time (days), observe ~15% variability in N3
• However, calibration sources vary ~3% in similar fashion, so variability may be do to instrumental effects

Top left: Intensity plot of Calibrator source according to time of observation 4


Top right: Intensity plot of N3 according to time of observation
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
• N3 does not lie in the molecular cloud along the line of sight to it as previously thought
• The molecular cloud density is between 103 and 104 cm-3
• N3’s variability studies are ongoing and thus far inconclusive

• Future work would include continuing to investigate the molecular cloud in front of N3, since it is remarkably
small and dense compared to other galactic center clouds

Above: Cygnus A, containing an AGN with jets. Photo credit NRAO


REFERENCES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgements:
• We would like to thank the National Radio Astronomy Observatory for the use of the Very Large Array to
take this data.
• We would like to thank Dr. Allison Costa from University of Virginia for assistance and the use of some
her Python programs.

References:
• Wenli et al. “Rotational excitation of HC3N by H2 and He at low temperatures” 2006
• Hunt et al. “High-resolution observations of the J=1-0 transition of cyanoacetylene in Sgr B2” 1999
• Ludovici et al. “The Unusual Galactic Center Radio Source N3” 2016

6
HOW ABSORPTION AND EMISSION LINES WORK

7
BONUS SLIDE ONE – WENLI ET AL.

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