The Spiral Host Galaxy of the Double Radio Source 0313-192

Abstract

We present new Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Gemini South, and Chandra observations of the radio galaxy 0313-192, which hosts a 350 kpc double source and jets, even though previous data have suggested that it is a spiral galaxy. We measure the bulge scale and the luminosity, radial, and vertical profiles of disk starlight and consider the distributions of H II regions and absorbing dust. In each case the HST data confirm its classification as an edge-on spiral galaxy, the only such system known to produce such an extended radio source of this kind. The Gemini near-IR images and Chandra spectral fit reveal a strongly obscured central active galactic nucleus (AGN), seen through the entire interstellar medium path length of the disk and showing X-ray evidence of additional absorption from warm or dense material close to the central object. We consider several possible mechanisms for producing such a rare combination of AGN and host properties, some combination of which may be at work. These include an unusually luminous bulge (suggesting a black hole of mass ~8×10⁸ M_solar), the orientation of the jets near the pole of the gas-rich disk, and some evidence of a weak gravitational interaction that has warped the disk and could have enhanced fueling of the central engine. We detect an X-ray counterpart of the kiloparsec-scale radio jet emerging to the south; jet/counterjet limits on both radio and X-ray regimes allow them to be symmetric if seen more than 15° from the plane of the sky, still consistent with the jet axes being within ~30° of the poles of the gas-rich galaxy disk. A linear or disklike emission-line structure is seen around the nucleus, inclined by ~20° to the stellar disk but nearly perpendicular to the jets; this may represent the aftermath of a galaxy encounter, in which gas is photoionized by a direct view of the nuclear continuum.

Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555 made with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory; and obtained at the Gemini Observatory, which is operated by AURA, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF) on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the NSF (United States), the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (United Kingdom), the National Research Council (Canada), CONICYT (Chile), the Australian Research Council (Australia), CNPq (Brazil), and CONICET (Argentina).