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Session 69 - Starburst Galaxies.
Display session, Thursday, June 11
Atlas Ballroom,
We have used the UCSD/Keck Long Wavelength Spectrometer (LWS; Jones amp; Puetter 1993, Proc. S.P.I.E., 1946, 610) in its initial (72 x 64) imaging mode to observe the luminous IR Galaxies Mrk 231, Arp 220, and NGC 7469, as well as NGC 1068 at mid-infrared wavelengths from 8--18\micron. Pixon-based image reconstruction techniques (Puetter 1995, Int. J. Image Sys. amp; Tech., 6, 314) have been employed to achieve resolution as high as 50 mas. The mid-infrared emission in Arp 220 is resolved into the two nuclei plus a faint knot of emission 0.5 arcsec SE of the western nucleus. The SEDs show that the the W nucleus dominates at the longest wavelengths and probably in the far-infrared. Silicate absorption at 10\micron\ is present in all three components, but is strongest in the E nucleus, suggesting that the emission comes from an optically thick shell around a very compact mid-IR source. The E nucleus is unresolved at 0.2 arcsec resolution. The nucleus of NGC 7469 is marginally resolved at 50mas resolution. On the average the nuclear emission is redder than the surrounding starburst ring; the active nucleus dominates at all mid-infrared wavelengths and the ratio of Nucleus/Starburst increases toward the FIR. Mrk 231 shows a compact, unresolved nucleus with a faint, resolved star-formation ring. These observations will be discussed in terms of the Sanders et al. (1988, ApJ, 325 74) model in which LIGs evolve from Starbursts to AGN.
The LWS is being upgraded with a Boeing 128 x 128 BIB array which is expected to be delivered in early summer. A 128 x 128 element multiplexer has been installed and optical performance reverified; further temperature stability tests and signal-to-noise optimization are being performed with an engineering array. The upgraded spectrometer with 11" FOV for imaging and spectroscopic resolutions, R=100 and 1000, is expected to be recommissioned this summer and to be available for scheduling in second semester 1998.
