Origin of Warm High-Velocity Dense Gas in ULIRGs

Abstract

Possible origins of the molecular absorption discovered in some ULIRGs are investigated, based on a 3-D hydrodynamic model of star-forming interstellar gas in a galactic central region. The blue-shifted, warm ($\sim 200-300$ K), dense ($>10^6$ cm$^{-3}$) molecular gas suggested by CO absorption in IRAS 08752+3915 could be caused by the innermost region of the inhomogeneous inter-stellar medium (ISM) around a supermassive black hole. The infrequent observations of the dense gas with absorption in ULIRGs and Seyfert 2 galaxies could simply suggest that the high-density regions occupy only a very small volume fraction of the obscuring material. This is naturally expected if the inhomogeneous structure of the ISM is caused by non-linear development of instabilities. The model predicts a turbulent velocity field in the obscuring material, therefore blue- and red-shifted gases should be observable with nearly the same probability for the large enough statistical samples.