Context. Tori of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are made up of a mixture of hot and cold gas, as well as dust. In order to protect the dust grains from destruction by the surrounding hot gas as well as by the energetic (UV/optical) radiation from the accretion disk, the dust is often assumed to be distributed in clouds. Aims. A new three-dimensional model of AGN dust tori is extensively investigated. The torus is modelled as a wedge-shaped disk within which dusty clouds are randomly distributed throughout the volume, by taking the dust density distribution of the corresponding continuous model into account. We especially concentrate on the differences between clumpy and continuous models in terms of the temperature distributions, the surface brightness distributions and interferometric visibilities, as well as spectral energy distributions. Methods. Radiative transfer calculations with the help of the three-dimensional Monte Carlo radiative transfer code MC3D are used in order to simulate spectral energy distributions as well as surface brightness distributions at various wavelengths. In a second step, interferometric visibilities for various inclination as well as position angles and baselines are calculated, which can be used to directly compare our models to interferometric observations with the MIDI instrument. Results. We find that the radial temperature distributions of clumpy models possess significantly enhanced scatter compared to the continuous cases. Even at large distances, clouds can be heated directly by the central accretion disk. The existence of the silicate 10 µm-feature in absorption or in emission depends sensitively on the distribution, the size and optical depth of clouds in the innermost part of the dust distribution. With this explanation, failure and success of previous modelling efforts of clumpy tori can be understood. The main reason for this outcome are shadowing effects of clouds within the central region. We underline this result with the help of several parameter variations. After adapting the parameters of our clumpy standard model to the circumstances of the Seyfert 2 Circinus galaxy, it can qualitatively explain recent mid-infrared interferometric observations performed with MIDI, as well as high resolution spectral data.

Abstract.We explore physically self-consistent models of dusty molecular tori in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) with the goal of interpreting VLTI observations and fitting high resolution mid-IR spectral energy distributions (SEDs). The input dust distribution is analytically calculated by assuming hydrostatic equilibrium between pressure forces -due to the turbulent motion of the gas clouds -and gravitational and centrifugal forces as a result of the contribution of the nuclear stellar distribution and the central black hole. For a fully three-dimensional treatment of the radiative transfer problem through the tori we employ the Monte Carlo code MC3D. We find that in homogeneous dust distributions the observed mid-infrared emission is dominated by the inner funnel of the torus, even when observing along the equatorial plane. Therefore, the stratification of the distribution of dust grains -both in terms of size and composition -cannot be neglected. In the current study we only include the effect of different sublimation radii which significantly alters the SED in comparison to models that assume an average dust grain property with a common sublimation radius, and suppresses the silicate emission feature at 9.7 µm. In this way we are able to fit the mean SED of both type I and type II AGN very well. Our fit of special objects for which high angular resolution observations (≤0.3 ) are available indicates that the hottest dust in NGC 1068 reaches the sublimation temperature while the maximum dust temperature in the low-luminosity AGN Circinus falls short of 1000 K.

Abstract.Mining the ISO data archive we provide the complete ISO view of PG quasars containing 64 infrared spectral energy distributions between 5 and 200 µm. About half of the sample was supplemented by MAMBO and SCUBA (sub-)millimetre data. Since the PG quasars were selected optically, the high infrared detection rate of more than 80% suggests that every quasar possesses luminous to hyperluminous dust emission with dust masses comparable to Seyferts and ultraluminous IR galaxies (ULIRGs). The gas-to-dust mass ratio (of those sources where CO measurements are available in the literature) is consistent with the galactic value providing further evidence for the thermal nature of the IR emission of radio quiet quasars. The SEDs represent templates of unprecedented detail and sensitivity. The power-law like near-to mid-IR SEDs (F ν ∝ ν α ) are smooth up to far-infrared wavelengths, favouring dust heating by the central AGN, and we conclude that, in particular for our hyperluminous quasars at z = 1, starbursts play only a minor role for powering the dust emission, even in the FIR. The IR spectral slopes α 1−10 µm range from -0.9 to -2.2 with a mean of −1.3 ± 0.3. They neither correlate with the optical spectral slope α 0.3−1 µm , nor with the IR luminosity, nor with the FIR/MIR luminosity ratio, nor with inclination-dependent extinction effects in the picture of a dusty torus. We suggest that the diversity of the SEDs reflects largely the evolution of the dust distribution, and we propose a classification of the SED shapes as well as an evolutionary scheme in which this variety can be understood. During the evolution the surrounding dust redistributes, settling more and more into a torus/disk like configuration, while the SEDs show an initial FIR bump, then an increasing MIR emission and a steeper near-to mid-infrared slope, both of which finally also decrease. Strikingly, based on the sensitive ISO data now we do not only see the coarse IR differences between ULIRGs and quasars, but also the details and a possible evolution of the dust distribution and emission even among the optically selected PG sample. Regarding cosmic evolution, our hyperluminous quasars in the "local" universe at z = 1 do not show the hyperluminous (L FIR > ∼ 10 13 L ) starburst activity inferred for z = 4 quasars detected in several (sub-)millimetre surveys. In view of several caveats this difference should be established further, but it already suggests that in the early dense universe stronger merger events led to more powerful starbursts accompanying the quasar phenomenon, while at later cosmic epochs any coeval starbursts obviously do not reach that high power and are outshone by the AGN.

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Recently, the existence of geometrically thick dust structures in active galactic nuclei (AGN) has been directly proven with the help of interferometric methods in the mid‐infrared. The observations are consistent with a two‐component model made up of a geometrically thin and warm central disc, surrounded by a colder, fluffy torus component. Within the framework of an exploratory study, we investigate one possible physical mechanism, which could produce such a structure, namely the effect of stellar feedback from a young nuclear star cluster on the interstellar medium in centres of AGN. The model is realized by numerical simulations with the help of the hydrodynamics code tramp. We follow the evolution of the interstellar medium by taking discrete mass‐loss and energy ejection due to stellar processes, as well as optically thin radiative cooling into account. In a post‐processing step, we calculate observable quantities like spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and surface brightness distributions with the help of the radiative transfer code mc3d. The interplay between injection of mass, supernova explosions and radiative cooling leads to a two‐component structure made up of a cold geometrically thin, but optically thick and very turbulent disc residing in the vicinity of the angular momentum barrier, surrounded by a filamentary structure. The latter consists of cold long radial filaments flowing towards the disc and a hot tenuous medium in between, which shows both inwards and outwards directed motions. With the help of this modelling, we are able to reproduce the range of observed neutral hydrogen column densities of a sample of Seyfert galaxies as well as the relation between them and the strength of the silicate 10 μm spectral feature. Despite being quite crude, our mean Seyfert galaxy model is even able to describe the SEDs of two intermediate type Seyfert galaxies observed with the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Context. Previous works have demonstrated that the generation of secondary CMB anisotropies due to the molecular optical depth is likely too small to be observed. In this paper, we examine additional ways in which primordial chemistry and the dark ages might influence the CMB. Aims. We seek a detailed understanding of the formation of molecules in the postrecombination universe and their interactions with the CMB. We present a detailed and updated chemical network and an overview of the interactions of molecules with the CMB. Methods. We calculate the evolution of primordial chemistry in a homogeneous universe and determine the optical depth due to line absorption, photoionization and photodissociation, and estimate the resulting changes in the CMB temperature and its power spectrum. Corrections for stimulated and spontaneous emission are taken into account. Results. The most promising results are obtained for the negative hydrogen ion H − and the HeH + molecule. The free-free process of H − yields a relative change in the CMB temperature of up to 2 × 10 −11 , and leads to a frequency-dependent change in the power spectrum of the order 10 −7 at 30 GHz. With a change of the order 10 −10 in the power spectrum, our result for the bound-free process of H − is significantly below a previous suggestion. HeH + efficiently scatters CMB photons and smears out primordial fluctuations, leading to a change in the power spectrum of the order 10 −8 . Conclusions. We demonstrate that primordial chemistry does not alter the CMB during the dark ages of the universe at the significance level of current CMB experiments. We determine and quantify the essential effects that may contribute to changes in the CMB and leave an imprint from the dark ages, thus constituting a potential probe of the early universe.