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

Daniel E. Delaney; Erin K. S. Hicks; Lulu Zhang; Ric Davies; Chris Pacham; Rogemar A. Riffel; Miguel Pereira Santaella; Enrica Bellocchi; Nancy A. Levenson; Steph Campbell; David J. Rosario; Houda Haidar; Cristina Ramos Almeida; Anelise Audibert; Claudio Ricci; Laura Hermosa Munoz; Francoise Combes; Almudena Alonso-Herrero; Santiago Garcia-Burillo; Federico Espositio; Ismael Garcia-Bernete; Taro Shimizu; Martin Ward; Omaira Gonzalez Martin; Alvaro Labiano; Oscar Veenema; Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez; Dimitra Rigopopoulou; Marko Stalevski; Sebastian F. Honig; Donaji Esparza-Arredondo; Tkuma Izumi; Lindsay Fuller; Daniel Rouan

arXiv · 2604.06524

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

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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.

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Daniel E. Delaney, Erin K. S. Hicks, Lulu Zhang, Ric Davies, Chris Pacham, Rogemar A. Riffel, Miguel Pereira Santaella, Enrica Bellocchi, Nancy A. Levenson, Steph Campbell, David J. Rosario, Houda Haidar, Cristina Ramos Almeida, Anelise Audibert, Claudio Ricci, Laura Hermosa Munoz, Francoise Combes, Almudena Alonso-Herrero, Santiago Garcia-Burillo, Federico Espositio, Ismael Garcia-Bernete, Taro Shimizu, Martin Ward, Omaira Gonzalez Martin, Alvaro Labiano, Oscar Veenema, Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez, Dimitra Rigopopoulou, Marko Stalevski, Sebastian F. Honig, Donaji Esparza-Arredondo, Tkuma Izumi, Lindsay Fuller, Daniel Rouan. 2026-04-07. The Galaxy Activity, Torus, and outflow Survey (GATOS) XIII: Coupling Driven H2 Excitation in Seyferts. https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.06524

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