Abstract

We present Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph long-slit spectroscopy of the emission line nebulae in the compact steep spectrum radio sources 3C 67, 3C 277.1, and 3C 303.1. We derive BPT (Baldwin- Philips-Terlevich; Baldwin et al. 1981) diagnostic emission line ratios for the nebulae which are consistent with a mix of shock excitation and photoionization in the extended gas. In addition, line ratios indicative of lower ionization gas are found to be associated with higher gas velocities. The results are consistent with a picture in which these galaxy scale radio sources interact with dense clouds in the interstellar medium of the host galaxies, shocking the clouds thereby ionizing and accelerating them.

Publication Date

5-30-2005

Comments

This is the pre-print of an article published by EDP Sciences. The final, published version is available here: https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20042425

Reproduced with permission from Astronomy & Astrophyics, © 2005 ESO

Also archived in: arXiv:astro-ph/0504330 v1 14 Apr 2005

Support for this work was provided by NASA through grant number GO-08104.01-97A (PI C. O’Dea) from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. These observations are associated with program 8104. WDV’s work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration by the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract No. W-7405-Eng-48. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This research has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System. We thank the referee, Dr. Ignas Snellen, for useful comments on the manuscript.

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Document Type

Article

Department, Program, or Center

School of Physics and Astronomy (COS)

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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