Simulated Molecular Gas Emission in Galaxy Mergers with Embedded AGN

Abstract

We investigate the effect of embedded active galactic nuclei (AGN) in galaxy mergers on the CO molecular line emission by combining non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) radiative transfer calculations with hydrodynamic simulations. We find that AGN feedback energy in gas rich galaxy mergers can contribute to large molecular outflows which may be detectable via velocity-integrated emission contour maps, as well as through kinematic features in the emission line profiles.

6 pages, 4 figures, Proceedings for Contributed Talk given at "Infrared Diagnostics of Galaxy Evolution", ASP, ed. Ranga-Ram Chary