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"The Complex Diffuse Emission in Centaurus A"
Dr. N. Brassington
Univ. of Hertfordshire (UK)

When:  Wednesday, 15 February 2012 at 2:00pm
Where: 2nd Floor Seminar Room

Centaurus A, the nearby radio galaxy and late-stage merger provides a unique opportunity to observe the complex emission that arises from an active galaxy and study the dynamics of the merger process. This system has been subject to a series of deep Chandra observations to probe the constituents of this galaxy, including the particle acceleration processes of the jet, the nature of the low-mass binary population and the thermodynamic parameters of the gas.

Here I will present the properties of the central diffuse gas of the system, where this complex emission can be related to the dust lanes present in the galaxy. With these high quality data I have analysed
spectral regions based on the X-ray morphology of the central region, determining the variations of temperature and abundance. In addition to this I will discuss the correlation of the hydrogen column density to NIR data which provide mapping of the dust extinction that is present in the system. Such a comparison allows us to determine the gas-to-dust ratio at the centre of the galaxy and reveals any variations in this ratio.

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