JWST Reveals the Diversity of Nuclear Obscuring Dust in Nearby AGN: Nuclear Isolation of MIRI/MRS Data Cubes and Continuum Spectral Fitting

Author(s)

• Omaira González-Martín
• Daniel J. Díaz-González
• Mariela Martínez-Paredes
• Almudena Alonso-Herrero
• Enrique López-Rodríguez, University of South Carolina
• Begoña García-Lorenzo
• Cristina Ramos Almeida
• Ismael García-Bernete
• Donaji Esparza-Arredondo
• Sebastian F. Hoenig
• Santiago García-Burillo
• Chris Packham
• Nancy A. Levenson
• Alvaro Labiano
• Miguel Pereira-Santaella
• Francoise Combes
• Anelise Audibert
• Erin K.S. Hicks
• Lulu Zhang
• Enrica Bellocchi
• Richard I. Davies
• Laura Hermosa Muñoz
• Masatoshi Imanishi
• Claudio Ricci
• Marko Stalevski

Document Type

Article

Abstract

We investigate the capabilities of the mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) of JWST to advance our knowledge of active galactic nucleus (AGN) dust using the spectral fitting technique on an AGN collection of 21 nearby (z < 0.05) AGN (7 type-1 and 14 type-2) observations obtained with the medium resolution spectroscopy (MRS) mode. This collection includes publicly available AGN and data from the collaboration of Galactic Activity, Torus, and Outflow Survey (GATOS). We developed a tool named MRSPSFisol that decomposes MRS cubes into point-like and extended contributions. We found statistically good fits for 12 targets with current AGN dust models. The model that provides good fits (χ²/dof< 2) for these 12 targets assumes a combination of clumpy and smooth distribution of dust in a flare-disc geometry where the dust grain size is a free parameter. Still, two and one AGN statistically prefer the disc + wind and the classical clumpy torus model, respectively. However, the currently available models fail to reproduce 40 per cent of the targets, likely due to the extreme silicate features not well reproduced by the models and signatures of water-ice and aliphatic hydrocarbon absorption features in most targets. New models exploring, for instance, new chemistry, are needed to explain the complexity of AGN dust continuum emission observed by JWST.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf573

Publication Info

Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 539, Issue 3, 2025, pages 2158-2184.

Rights

© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

APA Citation

González-Martín, O., Díaz-González, D. J., Martínez-Paredes, M., Alonso-Herrero, A., López-Rodríguez, E., García-Lorenzo, B., Ramos Almeida, C., García-Bernete, I., Esparza-Arredondo, D., Hoenig, S. F., García-Burillo, S., Packham, C., Levenson, N. A., Labiano, Á., Pereira-Santaella, M., Combes, F., Audibert, A., Hicks, E. K. S., Zhang, L., ... Stalevski, M. (2025). JWST reveals the diversity of nuclear obscuring dust in nearby AGN: Nuclear isolation of MIRI/MRS data cubes and continuum spectral fitting. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 539(3), 2158–2184.https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf573