Physical conditions in Centaurus A’s northern filaments: I. APEX mid-J CO observations of CO-bright regions⋆,⋆⋆

NGC 5128 (Centaurus A) is one of the best targets to study AGN-feedback in the local Universe. Optical filaments located at 16 kpc from the galaxy along the radio jet direction show recent star formation, likely triggered by the interaction of the jet with an HI shell. A large reservoir of molecular gas has been discovered outside the HI. In this reservoir, lies the Horseshoe complex: a filamentary structure seen in CO with ALMA and in H alpha with MUSE. The ionised gas is mostly excited by shocks, with only a minor contribution of star formation. We used the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) to observe the (CO)-C-12(3-2) and (CO)-C-12(4-3) transitions, as well as dense gas tracers in the Horseshoe complex. (CO)-C-12(3-2) and (CO)-C-12(4-3) are detected for the first time in the northern filaments of Centaurus A, with integrated intensity line ratios R-32 similar to 0.2 and R-43 similar to 0.1, compared to the (CO)-C-12(1-0) emission. We also derived a line ratio R-21 similar to 0.6, based on previous (CO)-C-12(2-1) observations. We used the non-LTE radiative transfer code RADEX and determined that the molecular gas in this region has a temperature of 55 - 70 K and densities between 2-6 x 10(2) cm(-3). Such densities are also in agreement with results from the Paris-Durham shock code that predicts a post-shock density of a few 100 cm(-3). However, we need more observations of emission lines at a better angular resolution in order to place tighter constraints on our radiative models, whether they are used as a stand-alone tool (LVG codes) or combined with a shock model.