The History and Environment of a Faded Quasar: Hubble Space Telescope
  observations of Hanny's Voorwerp and IC 2497
  We present Hubble Space Telescope imaging and spectroscopy for the extended
high-ionization cloud known as Hanny's Voorwerp, near the spiral galaxy IC
2497. WFC3 images show complex dust absorption near the nucleus of IC 2497.
STIS spectra show a type 2 Seyfert AGN of rather low luminosity. The ionization
parameter log U = -3.5 is in accord with its weak X-ray emission. We find no
high-ionization gas near the nucleus, adding to evidence that the AGN is
currently at low radiative output (perhaps now dominated by kinetic energy).
The nucleus is accompanied by an expanding ring of ionized gas 500 pc in
projected diameter on the side opposite Hanny's Voorwerp, with Doppler offset
300 km/s from the nucleus (kinematic age < 7 x10^5 years). [O III] and H-alpha
+ [N II] images show fine structure in Hanny's Voorwerp, with limb-brightened
sections and small areas where H-alpha is strong. We identify these as regions
ionized by recent star formation, in contrast to the AGN ionization of the
entire cloud. These candidate "normal" H II regions contain blue continuum
objects, whose colors are consistent with young stellar populations; they
appear only in a 2-kpc region toward IC 2497 in projection. The
ionization-sensitive ratio [O III]/H-alpha shows no discernible pattern near
the prominent "hole" in the ionized gas. The independence of ionization and
surface brightness suggests that substantial spatial structure remains
unresolved, to such an extent that the surface brightness sample the number of
denser filaments rather than the characteristic density in emission regions.
These results fit with our picture of an ionization echo from an AGN whose
ionizing luminosity has dropped by a factor > 100 (and possibly much more)
within the last 1-2 x 10^5 years; we suggest a sequence of events and discuss
implications of such rapid fluctuations for AGN demographics. (Abridged)
