DISCOVERY OF AN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS DRIVEN MOLECULAR OUTFLOW IN THE LOCAL EARLY-TYPE GALAXY NGC 1266

By K. Alatalo, L. Blitz, L. M. Young, T. Davis, M. Bureau, Laura A. Lopez, M. Cappellari, Nicholas Scott, K. Shapiro, A. Crocker and 19 more. 2011

219 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We report the discovery of a powerful molecular wind from the nucleus of the non-interacting nearby S0 field galaxy NGC 1266. The single-dish CO profile exhibits emission to ±400 km s−1 and requires a nested Gaussian fit to be properly described. Interferometric observations reveal a massive, centrally concentrated molecular component with a mass of 1.1 × 109 M☉ and a molecular outflow with a molecular mass of ≈2.4 × 107 M☉. The molecular gas close to the systemic velocity consists of a rotating, compact nucleus with a mass of about 4.1 × 108 M☉ within a radius of ≈60 pc. This compact molecular nucleus has a surface density of ≈2.7 × 104 M☉ pc−2, more than two orders of magnitude larger than that of giant molecular clouds in the disk of the Milky Way, and it appears to sit on the Kennicutt–Schmidt relation despite its extreme kinematics and energetic activity. We interpret this nucleus as a disk that confines the outflowing wind. A mass outflow rate of ≈13 M☉ yr−1 leads to a depletion timescale of ≲85 Myr. The star formation in NGC 1266 is insufficient to drive the outflow, and thus it is likely driven by the active galactic nucleus. The concentration of the majority of the molecular gas in the central 100 pc requires an extraordinary loss of angular momentum, but no obvious companion or interacting galaxy is present to enable the transfer. NGC 1266 is the first known outflowing molecular system that does not show any evidence of a recent interaction.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/31d91bdfe63bc79b46f826f6549a80d3e21a227a

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. M. Cappellari
2. P. Hopkins
3. L. Hernquist
4. D. M. Alexander
5. T. Naab
6. Roger Davies
7. F. Walter
8. Thomas J. Cox

Citations in the corpus

• OBSERVATIONS OF Arp 220 USING HERSCHEL-SPIRE: AN UNPRECEDENTED VIEW OF THE MOLECULAR GAS IN AN EXTREME STAR FORMATION ENVIRONMENT (2011, methodology): “Direct observational evidence of massive molecular outflows was recently discovered in two galaxies using the IRAM PdBI and Herschel PACS: Mrk 231 (Fischer et al. 2010; Feruglio et al. 2010) and NGC 1266 (Alatalo et al. 2011).”
• Improving the full spectrum fitting method: accurate convolution with Gauss-Hermite functions (2016, background): “E-mail: michele.cappellari@physics.ox.ac.uk 2015) or the mechanism that regulates star formation in galaxies (e.g. Alatalo et al. 2011; Cheung et al. 2016; Ho et al. 2016).”
• Energetic galaxy-wide outflows in high-redshift ultraluminous infrared galaxies hosting AGN activity (2012, background): “Such observations of low-redshift galaxies have identified kpc-scale outflows in both ionised (e.g., Holt et al. 2008; Fu & Stockton 2009; Rupke & Veilleux 2011; Westmoquette et al. 2012) and molecular gas (e.g., Feruglio et al. 2010; Alatalo et al. 2011).”
• Molecular line emission in NGC 1068 imaged with ALMA: I. An AGN-driven outflow in the dense molecular gas (2014, background): “…of nearby active galaxies including ultra luminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs), radio galaxies, and Seyferts (Feruglio et al. 2010; Sturm et al. 2011; Alatalo et al. 2011; Chung et al. 2011; Aalto et al. 2012; Dasyra & Combes 2012; Combes et al. 2013; Morganti et al. 2013; Cicone et al. 2012, 2014).”
• Relativistic jet feedback – III. Feedback on gas discs (2018, background): “Such a scenario is also true for NGC 1266 with a jet of much lower power (Nyland et al. 2013) that does not drive outflows that escape the galaxy (Alatalo et al. 2011).”
• The fast molecular outflow in the Seyfert galaxy IC 5063 as seen by ALMA (2015, background): “…found to represent the dominant mass component of the outflows observed (see e.g. Morganti et al. 2005a,b, 2013a,b; Kanekar & Chengalur 2008; Holt et al. 2009; Feruglio et al. 2010; Alatalo et al. 2011; Dasyra & Combes 2011, 2012; Cicone et al. 2014; García-Burillo et al. 2014, for some examples).”
• Kiloparsec-scale outflows are prevalent among luminous AGN: outflows and feedback in the context of the overall AGN population (2014, background): “…kinematics of the ionised gas; however, we briefly note that outflowing gas has been observed in multiple gas phases in some AGN (e.g., Rupke et al. 2005; Martin 2005; Fischer et al. 2010; Feruglio et al. 2010; Alatalo et al. 2011; Veilleux et al. 2013; Cimatti et al. 2013; Rupke & Veilleux 2013).”
• Very extended cold gas, star formation and outflows in the halo of a bright QSO at z>6 (2014, background): “…outflows and, in particular, of massive kpcscale outflows of cold and dense molecular gas in nearby galaxies (Feruglio et al. 2010, 2013a,b; Alatalo et al. 2011; Sturm et al. 2011; Aalto et al. 2012; Veilleux et al. 2013; Spoon et al. 2013; Combes et al. 2013; Cicone et al. 2012, 2014;…”
• AGN wind scaling relations and the co-evolution of black holes and galaxies (2017, background): “…Perna et al. 2015a,b; Zakamska et al. 2016); 2) interferometric observations in the (sub)millmetre domain (e.g. Feruglio et al. 2010, 2013a,b, 2015; Alatalo et al. 2011; Aalto et al. 2012; Cicone et al. 2012, 2014, 2015; Maiolino et al. 2012, Krips et al. 2011; Morganti et al. 2013a,b; Combes et…”
• The ATLAS3D project - XIV. The extent and kinematics of the molecular gas in early-type galaxies (2012, background): “Two galaxies (NGC 1266 and UGC 05408) were not resolved at the resolution of our D-array CARMA data (but see Alatalo et al. 2011 for a full discussion of the gas in the molecular outflow of NGC 1266).”
• Detection of HCN, HCO+, and HNC in the Mrk 231 molecular outflow. Dense molecular gas in the AGN wind (2011, background): “…evidence is mounting for massive molecular outflows in AGNs and starburst galaxies (Sakamoto et al. 2010; Feruglio et al. 2010; Chung et al. 2011; Alatalo et al. 2011; Sturm et al. 2011) and high-velocity molecular outflows have been found in OH- ⋆ Based on observations carried out with the…”
• Structure and Kinematics of Early-Type Galaxies from Integral Field Spectroscopy (2016, background): “Evidence of feedback in action within a field fast rotator was presented in Alatalo et al. (2011).”
• Massive molecular outflows and evidence for AGN feedback from CO observations (2013, methodology): “…and the total bolometric luminosity of the galaxy; (10) references for the CO fluxes used to estimate MH2 : 1 – this work; 2 – Cicone et al. (2012); 3 – Alatalo et al. (2011); 4 – Walter et al. (2002); 5 – Aalto et al. (2012b); 6 – Feruglio et al. (2013a,b); 7 – Sakamoto et al. (2006b); 8 –…”
• Evidence of strong quasar feedback in the early Universe (2012, background): “However, even if real, an offset of the centroid of the outflowing gas is not surprising, since outflows observed in local and high-z galaxies are not aligned with the galaxy centers (Weiß et al. 2001; Walter et al. 2004; Wilson et al. 2008; Alatalo et al. 2011).”