Kavli Affiliate: Claudio Ricci
| First 5 Authors: Makoto A. Johnstone, George C. Privon, Loreto Barcos-Munoz, A. S. Evans, S. Aalto
| Summary:
Compact Obscured Nuclei (CONs) are heavily obscured infrared cores that have
been found in local (ultra)luminous infrared galaxies (U/LIRGs). They show
bright emission from vibrationally excited rotational transitions of HCN, known
as HCN-vib, and are thought to harbor Compton Thick (CT, $N_{text{H}} geq
10^{24}$ cm$^{-2}$) active galactic nuclei (AGN) or extreme compact starbursts.
We explore the potential evolutionary link between CONs and CT AGN by searching
for CONs in hard X-ray-confirmed CT AGN from the Great Observatories All-sky
LIRG Survey (GOALS). Here, we present new Atacama Large
Millimeter/submillimeter Array Band 6 observations that targeted HCN-vib
emission in four hard X-ray-confirmed CT AGN. We analyze these objects together
with literature HCN-vib measurements of five additional hard X-ray-confirmed CT
AGN from the GOALS sample. We do not detect any CONs in this combined sample of
nine CT AGN. We then explore a proposed evolutionary sequence in which CONs
evolve into X-ray-detectable CT AGN once outflows and feedback reduce the
column densities of the enshrouding gas. We find, however, no evidence of
well-developed dense molecular outflows in the observed CT AGN. While this
could suggest that CT AGN are not universally linked to CONs, it could also be
explained by a short duty cycle for molecular outflows.
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