Abstract
NGC 4945 is a rather innocuous late-type spiral, except for the energetics of its nucleus. Manifestations of the high level of nuclear activity include very high far-infrared fluxes and a plethora of excited molecules. Using new data obtained with a long-slit near-infrared spectrograph, we deduce the existence of circumnuclear molecular hydrogen which is both spatially and spectrally resolved. The molecular gas is heated by shocks emanating from a nuclear stellar cluster. We find that the flat H I rotation curve valid for the bulk of the galaxy is not appropriate for the velocity distribution of the molecular material in the central kiloparsec
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