New Evidence for the Dusty Wind Model: Polar Dust and a Hot Core in the Type-1 Seyfert ESO 323-G77

Infrared interferometry of Seyfert galaxies has revealed that their warm (300-400 K) dust emission originates primarily from polar regions instead of from an equatorial dust torus as predicted by the classic AGN unification scheme. We present new data for the type 1.2 object ESO 323-G77 obtained with the MID-infrared interferometric Instrument and a new detailed morphological study of its warm dust. The partially resolved emission on scales between 5 and 50 mas (1.6-16 pc) is decomposed into a resolved and an unresolved source. Approximately 65% of the correlated flux between 8 and 13 mu m is unresolved at all available baseline lengths. The remaining 35% is partially resolved and shows angular structure. From geometric modeling, we find that the emission is elongated along a position angle of 155 degrees +/- 14 degrees with an axis ratio (major/minor) of 2.9 +/- 0.3. Because the system axis is oriented in the position angle 174 degrees +/- 2 degrees, we conclude that the dust emission of this object is also polar extended. A CAT3D-WIND radiative transfer model of a dusty disk and a dusty wind with a half opening angle of 30 degrees can reproduce both the interferometric data and the SED, while a classical torus model is unable to fit the interferometric data. We interpret this as further evidence that a polar dust component is required even for low-inclination type 1 sources.