Observations of the inner jet in NGC 1068 at 43 GHz

¹ National Radio Astronomy Observatory (The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is operated by Associated Universities Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.) , 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475, USA e-mail: bcotton@nrao.edu
² Leiden Observatory, Neils BohrWeg 2, 2333 CA Leiden, The Netherlands
³ Observatoire de Paris, LESIA, UMR 8109, 92190 Meudon, France
⁴ W. M. Keck Observatory, 65-1120 Mamalahoa Highway, Kamuela, HI 96743, USA

Received: 2 October 2007
Accepted: 6 November 2007

Abstract

We present the results of observations of the AGN in the Seyfret galaxy NGC 1068 at 43 GHz (7 mm wavelength) with 50 mas resolution. The results are consistent with the claim of Gallimore et al. (2004) that the nuclear component is dominated by thermal emission. This adds to the growing body of evidence that this component is dominated by a hot inner region of the obscuring torus rather than the base of the radio jet. However, possible detection of linear polarization from this component suggests some emission from the synchrotron emitting jet or that the polarization arises from Thompson scattering of the thermal emission by the nuclear plasma.