An ALMA and ATCA Molecular Line Survey Toward Centaurus A

Abstract

We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) data of molecular absorption lines toward the bright central core of the prominent, nearby (d ∼ 3.8 Mpc) radio galaxy Centaurus A, at 13, 7, 3, and 1mm wavelengths. The line of sight crosses the prominent dust lane and continues through the disk and eventually through gas that may be very close to the central supermassive black hole. The goal of our survey is to determine the physical conditions of the gas via analyses of molecular line tracers including molecular abundances and excitation conditions that are sensitive to changes in temperature, density, ionization, and shocks. This study allows us to derive the physical processes that are shaping each molecular environment.