THE DUSTY NUCLEAR TORUS IN NGC 4151: CONSTRAINTS FROM GEMINI NEAR-INFRARED INTEGRAL FIELD SPECTROGRAPH OBSERVATIONS

We have used a near-infrared (near-IR) nuclear spectrum (covering the Z, J, H, and K bands) of the nucleus of NGC 4151 obtained with the Gemini Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrograph (NIFS) and adaptive optics, to isolate and constrain the properties of a near-IR unresolved nuclear source whose spectral signature is clearly present in our data. The near-IR spectrum was combined with an optical spectrum obtained with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph which was used to constrain the contribution of a power-law component. After subtraction of the power-law component, the near-IR continuum is well fitted by a blackbody function, with T = 1285 +/- 50 K, which dominates the nuclear spectrum-within an aperture of radius 0 ''.3-in the near-IR. We attribute the blackbody component to emission by a dusty structure, with hot dust mass M(HD) = (6.9 +/- 1.5) x 10(-4) M(circle dot), not resolved by our observations, which provide only an upper limit for its distance from the nucleus of 4 pc. If the reddening derived for the narrow-line region also applies to the near-IR source, we obtain a temperature T = 1360 +/- 50 K and a mass M(HD) = (3.1 +/- 0.7) x 10(-4) M(circle dot) for the hot dust. This structure may be the inner wall of the dusty torus postulated by the unified model or the inner part of a dusty wind originating in the accretion disk.