Abstract:
We present new Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Gemini South, and Chandra observations of the radio galaxy 0313-192, which hosts a 350 kpc double source and jets, even though previous data have suggested that it is a spiral galaxy. We measure the bulge scale and the luminosity, radial, and vertical profiles of disk starlight and consider the distributions of H II regions and absorbing dust. In each case the HST data confirm its classification as an edge-on spiral galaxy, the only such system known to produce such an extended radio source of this kind. The Gemini near-IR images and Chandra spectral fit reveal a strongly obscured central active galactic nucleus (AGN), seen through the entire interstellar medium path length of the disk and showing X-ray evidence of additional absorption from warm or dense material close to the central object. We consider several possible mechanisms for producing such a rare combination of AGN and host properties, some combination of which may be at work. These include an unusually luminous bulge (suggesting a black hole of mass similar to 8 x 10(8) M-circle dot), the orientation of the jets near the pole of the gas-rich disk, and some evidence of a weak gravitational interaction that has warped the disk and could have enhanced fueling of the central engine. We detect an X-ray counterpart of the kiloparsec-scale radio jet emerging to the south; jet/counterjet limits on both radio and X-ray regimes allow them to be symmetric if seen more than 15 degrees from the plane of the sky, still consistent with the jet axes being within similar to 30 degrees of the poles of the gas-rich galaxy disk. A linear or disklike emission-line structure is seen around the nucleus, inclined by similar to 20 degrees to the stellar disk but nearly perpendicular to the jets; this may represent the aftermath of a galaxy encounter, in which gas is photoionized by a direct view of the nuclear continuum.
