JWST interferometric imaging reveals the dusty torus obscuring the supermassive black hole of Circinus galaxy

Abstract

Abstract The dusty and molecular torus is an elusive structure surrounding supermassive black holes, yet its importance is unequivocal for understanding feedback and accretion mechanisms. The torus and accretion disk feed the inspiraling gas onto the active nucleus, launching outflows that fundamentally connect the active nucleus’s activity to the host galaxy. In this work, we utilize the aperture-masking interferometric mode onboard the JWST to achieve a resolution of 0.08" at 4.3 μ m and bring out the fainter features in the central 10 pc of the Circinus galaxy. We show that most of the dust mass is located along the equatorial axis in the form of a 5 × 3 pc disk feeding the active nucleus. Only  < 1% of the dust emission arises from an arc structure composed of hot dust entrained in a molecular and ionized outflow, while the extended emission is associated with dust heated by the active galaxy at large scales.