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P.K. Kondratko, L.J. Greenhill, J.M. Moran (CfA)
We present VLBI images of continuum emission in the inner parsec of the starburst galaxy NGC 3079. At 5, 8, and 15 GHz, we detected three compact features distributed over 2.6 pc along an axis at P.A. 127\circ and confirm a previously measured growing separation between the components with a speed 0.13±0.03c. At 5 and 8 GHz we detected a new continuum feature that is significantly offset from the axis of the putative jet. This feature is not consistent with the narrowly collimated jet proposed by previous authors and could be a moving knot in a wide angle outflow or a radio supernova associated with the starbust. There is no detectable linear polarization of the components (with upper limits of 1, 2, and 16 percent at 5, 8, and 15 GHz respectively) that could be used to distinguish among possible models. However, water maser emission is distributed irregularly across the roughly 1 pc region. We have examined a model of the distribution of maser emission components arising within a thick and inclined accretion disk.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: pkondratko@cfa.harvard.edu