NGC 5128 – Centaurus A Dante Minniti ESO Vitacura Nov 2005

ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti Review: Israel 1998 A&A Rev. NASA/CSO/NRAO NGC Centaurus A

Why is this galaxy important? It is the nearest gE galaxy with a large GC system It shows the nearest spectacular merger event It is the closest radio galaxy with jets It harbours the nearest supermassive BH ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti NGC Centaurus A

Giant elliptical galaxy classified as E/S0pec. It is the dominant galaxy of the Centaurus group at 4 Mpc. This kind of galaxy is not present in the Local Group. It is 10x more massive than the Milky Way. The underlying stellar distribution has a round shape. Several pieces of evidence point at a recent merger occurred ~ 10 8 – 10 9 yr ago: –It exhibits a prominent dust lane –It contains shells –It has ongoing intense star formation –There is inhomogeneous gas distribution in X-rays D= 3.8 Mpc  1” ~ 18 pc  1’ ~ 1 kpc  (m-M) 0 ~ 27.9 mag NGC Centaurus A ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti

The Nearest Radio Galaxy ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti Large double lobed radio source Radio

NRAO/AUI ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti

Optical AAO

1` ~ 1 kpc 7x7 kpc ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti VLT Optical

ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti 2MASS near-IR

ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti Chandra X-rays

ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti 1` ~ 1 kpc 7x7 kpc Optical Point sources

ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti 1` ~ 1 kpc 7x7 kpc Optical

ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti Jet towards one side Point sources Diffuse emission CTIO H  1` ~ 1 kpc 7x7 kpc

WFI Optical ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti

CHANDRA X-rays

NRAO Radio continuum NRAO Radio HI 21cm CHANDRA X-rays ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti

HH HH H  image obtained by J. Funes at the CTIO 0.9m tel. Allows the identification of HII regions and SNRs.

ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti SPITZER Mid-IR ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti

GALEX EUV ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti

7. A Supermassive Black Hole ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti

Supermassive BH ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti Cuspy core in IR Kinematics with VLT+NACO Massive black hole M BH ~9x10 7 M  Cold vs hot disk vs Jeans models of different inclinations Feeding the monster VLT and GEMINI data Marconi et al. 2000, 2001, Haring-Neumayer et al. 2005, Silge et al. 2005

ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti CHANDRA X-rays The radio and X-ray jet is Doppler boosted (effect due to emitting Particles moving towards us at speeds close to the speed of light. CSO/NASA

Subluminal VLBI source, showing a well defined core, a powerful jet and counter-jet (though near the horizon). The jet is seen in radio, in IR, and in X-rays. For M BH ~10 8 M   R BH = 2GM/c 2 ~ 1 AU Jet at 2.2 GHz from Tingay & Murphy ApJ 2001 VLBI Radio 5 pc ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti

8. Inner Structure ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti

SPITZER Mid-IR ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti

Inner structure: ISO inner spiral  bar funnels gas to the BH? Settling of gas in the central regions. Cold disk of dust and gas, plenty of material to form stars and to feed the inner BH engine. Mirabel et al A&A ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti ISO Infrared

Within reach of interferometry? VLTI Paste here VLTI picture in 2006 ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti

Central Av~70 mag! ALMA Paste here ALMA picture in 2010 ESO Vitacura – Nov 2005 Dante Minniti

1. Stellar populations 2. Variable Stars 3. Star Clusters 4. New GC PNe 5. X-Ray Sources 6. Binary Clusters 7. Supermassive BH 8. Inner structure NGC Centaurus A