Resolving the coronal line region of NGC1068 with near-infrared integral
  field spectroscopy
  We present adaptive optics-assisted J- and K-band integral field spectroscopy
of the inner 300 x 300 pc of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC1068. The data were
obtained with the Gemini NIFS integral field unit spectrometer, which provided
us with high-spatial and -spectral resolution sampling. The wavelength range
covered by the observations allowed us to study the [CaVIII], [SiVI], [SiVII],
[AlIX] and [SIX] coronal-line (CL) emission, covering ionization potentials up
to 328 eV. The observations reveal very rich and complex structures, both in
terms of velocity fields and emission-line ratios. The CL emission is elongated
along the NE-SW direction, with the stronger emission preferentially localized
to the NE of the nucleus. CLs are emitted by gas covering a wide range of
velocities, with maximum blueshifts/redshifts of ~ -1600/1000 km/s. There is a
trend for the gas located on the NE side of the nucleus to be blueshifted while
the gas located towards the SW is redshifted. The morphology and the kinematics
of the near-infrared CLs are in very good agreement with the ones displayed by
low-ionization lines and optical CLs, suggesting a common origin. The line flux
distributions, velocity maps, ionization structure (traced by the
[SiVII]/[SiVI] emission-line ratio) and low ionization emission-line ratios
(i.e., [FeII]/Pa\beta\ and [FeII]/[PII]) suggest that the radio jet plays an
important role in the structure of the coronal line region of this object, and
possibly in its kinematics.
