The Mid‐ and Far‐Infrared Spectral Energy Distribution of Seyfert Galaxies

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Abstract
We present mid- and far-infrared spectral energy distributions (SED) for 10 objects from the CfA Seyfert sample, obtained with the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). We apply an inversion Bayesian method to recover the observed SEDs, assuming that the mid- and far-IR emission of Seyfert galaxies is of thermal origin. The result is that the SED of these galaxies can be reproduced with thermal emission from two or three different sources: a warm component (T ~ 150 K) that originates in dust close to the active galactic nucleus (AGN), a cold component (T ~ 40-50 K) due to dust heated in star-forming regions, and a very cold component (T ~ 10-20 K) due to dust heated by the general galactic interstellar radiation field. We also note that the temperature of the warm component for the type 2 Seyfert galaxies tends to be lower than that of the type 1 Seyfert galaxies.