Nuclear and Extended Spectra of NGC 1068 - I: Hints from Near-Infrared
  Spectroscopy
  We report the first simultaneous zJHK spectroscopy on the archetypical
Seyfert 2 Galaxy NGC 1068 covering the wavelength region 0.9 to 2.4 micron. The
slit, aligned in the NS direction and centred in the optical nucleus, maps a
region 300 pc in radius at sub-arcsec resolution, with a spectral resolving
power of 360 km s^-1. This configuration allow us to study the physical
properties of the nuclear gas including that of the north side of the
ionization cone, map the strong excess of continuum emission in the K-band and
attributed to dust and study the variations, both in flux and profile, in the
emission lines. Our results show that (1) Mid- to low-ionization emission lines
are splitted into two components, whose relative strengths vary with the
position along the slit and seem to be correlated with the jet. (2) The coronal
lines are single-peaked and are detected only in the central few hundred of
parsecs from the nucleus. (3) The absorption lines indicate the presence of
intermediate age stellar population, which might be a significant contributor
to the continuum in the NIR spectra. (4) Through some simple photoionization
models we find photoionization as the main mechanism powering the emitting gas.
(5) Calculations using stellar features point to a mass concentration inside
the 100 - 200 pc of about 10^10 solar masses.
