X-shooter reveals powerful outflows in z ∼ 1.5 X-ray selected obscured quasi-stellar objects

By M. Brusa, A. Bongiorno, G. Cresci, Michele Perna, A. Marconi, V. Mainieri, R. Maiolino, Mara Salvato, E. Lusso, P. Santini and 13 more. 2014

133 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present X-shooter at the Vewry Large Telescope observations of a sample of 10 luminous, X-ray obscured QSOs at z$\sim1.5$ from the XMM-COSMOS survey, expected to be caught in the transitioning phase from starburst to active galactic nucleus (AGN)-dominated systems. The main selection criterion is X-ray detection at bright fluxes (L$>=10^{44}$ erg s$^{-1}$) coupled to red optical-to-NIR-to-MIR colors. Thanks to its large wavelength coverage, X-shooter allowed us to determine accurate redshifts from the presence of multiple emission lines for five out of six targets for which we had only a photometric redshift estimate, with an 80 percent success rate, significantly larger than what is observed in similar programs of spectroscopic follow-up of red QSOs. We report the detection of broad and shifted components in the [OIII]$\lambda\lambda$5007,4959 complexes for six out of eight sources with these lines observable in regions free from strong atmospheric absorptions. The full width half-maximum (FWHM) associated with the broad components are in the range FWHM$\sim900-1600$ km s$^{-1}$, larger than the average value observed in SDSS Type 2 AGN samples at similar observed [OIII] luminosity, but comparable to those observed for QSO/ultraluminous infrared galaxies systems for which the presence of kpc scale outflows have been revealed through integral field unit spectroscopy. Although the total outflow energetics (inferred under reasonable assumptions) may be consistent with winds accelerated by stellar processes, we favour an AGN origin for the outflows given the high outflow velocities oberved (v$>1000$ km s$^{-1}$) and the presence of strong winds also in objects undetected in the far infrared.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/80fd80a5f1c117238a94870065b4b7b3be0f5525

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

Citations in the corpus

Ionised outflows in z $\sim$ 2.4 quasar host galaxies (2015, background): “We then infer mass outflow rate, momentum rate and kinetic power, and compare them with previous works (Greene et al. 2012, Cicone et al. 2014, Harrison et al. 2014, Sun et al. 2014, Brusa et al. 2015, Cresci et al. 2015 and Feruglio et al. 2015).”
Discovery of extreme [O III] λ5007 Å outflows in high-redshift red quasars (2015, methodology): “…high velocity dispersions or strong line asymmetries in forbidden lines – especially blue-shifts which arise naturally in dusty winds (Whittle 1985a) – are sufficient evidence of high-velocity extended outflows (Spoon & Holt 2009; Mullaney et al. 2013; Zakamska & Greene 2014; Brusa et al. 2015).”
AGN outflows and feedback twenty years on (2018, unknown): “The value of Lel,out can also be uncertain at the factor of a few level, or greater, when the outflows are difficult to isolate in the spectra and/or when the level of extinction is not constrained[45, 40].”
AGN wind scaling relations and the co-evolution of black holes and galaxies (2017, background): “Brusa et al. (2015b) proposed that feedback due to strong winds in massive AGN host galaxies may be the cause of the shorter depletion timescales and smaller molecular gas measured in a z 1.5 obscured QSO (XID2028, green triangle) and this may A143, page 6 of 21 also be the case for the galaxies in…”