FEEDBACK IN LUMINOUS OBSCURED QUASARS

By Jenny E. Greene, N. Zakamska, Luis C. Ho, A. Barth. 2011

163 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We use spatially resolved long-slit spectroscopy from Magellan to investigate the extent, kinematics, and ionization structure in the narrow-line regions of 15 luminous, obscured quasars with z < 0.5. Increasing the dynamic range in luminosity by an order of magnitude, as well as improving the depth of existing observations by a similar factor, we revisit relations between narrow-line region size and the luminosity and linewidth of the narrow emission lines. We find a slope of 0.22 ± 0.04 for the power-law relationship between size and luminosity, suggesting that the nebulae are limited by availability of gas to ionize at these luminosities. In fact, we find that the active galactic nucleus is effectively ionizing the interstellar medium over the full extent of the host galaxy. Broad (∼300–1000 km s−1) linewidths across the galaxies reveal that the gas is kinematically disturbed. Furthermore, the rotation curves and velocity dispersions of the ionized gas remain constant out to large distances, in striking contrast to normal and starburst galaxies. We argue that the gas in the entire host galaxy is significantly disturbed by the central active galactic nucleus. While only ∼107–108 M☉ worth of gas are directly observed to be leaving the host galaxies at or above their escape velocities, these estimates are likely lower limits because of the biases in both mass and outflow velocity measurements and may in fact be in accord with expectations of recent feedback models. Additionally, we report the discovery of two dual obscured quasars, one of which is blowing a large-scale (∼10 kpc) bubble of ionized gas into the intergalactic medium.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b29a96700a4532b347b5deb7ea3e385aead94bf8

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. D. M. Alexander
2. P. Hopkins
3. L. Hernquist
4. R. Maiolino
5. R. Hickox
6. W. N. Brandt
7. H. Netzer
8. P. Best

In Instrumentation

1. D. M. Alexander
2. P. Hopkins
3. L. Hernquist
4. R. Maiolino
5. H. Netzer
6. R. Hickox
7. W. N. Brandt
8. P. Best

Citations in the corpus

• Discovery of extreme [O III] λ5007 Å outflows in high-redshift red quasars (2015, methodology): “…distances from the galactic centre, as measured by spatially resolved long-slit and integral field unit observations (Nesvadba et al. 2006, 2008; Greene et al. 2011; Cano-Dı́az et al. 2012; Alexandroff et al. 2013; Liu et al. 2013a,b; Rupke & Veilleux 2013b; Harrison et al. 2014; Zakamska &…”
• Energetic galaxy-wide outflows in high-redshift ultraluminous infrared galaxies hosting AGN activity (2012, background): “4), which are often found in gas-rich systems containing luminous AGN (e.g., Colina et al. 1999; Nesvadba et al. 2008; Greene et al. 2011; Villar-Mart´ın et al. 2011a; Matsuoka 2012).”
• What drives the growth of black holes (2011, background): “At lower redshifts, long-slit spectroscopy of luminous narrow-line quasars at z 0.5 has revealed ubiquitous galaxy-scale ionized clouds with high velocity dispersions, which appear to be powered by the AGN and may be associated with outflows (Greene et al., 2011).”
• X-shooter reveals powerful outflows in z ∼ 1.5 X-ray selected obscured quasi-stellar objects (2014, background): “…may be in principle simply ascribed to the fact that more luminous systems are on average larger and therefore the NLR extends at larger radii (e.g. Netzer et al. 2004; see also R-Z13, Greene et al. 2011; Hainline et al. 2013; see also the higher average FWHM in SDSS Type 2 AGN at high L[OIII]).”
• Stellar and Quasar Feedback in Concert: Effects on AGN Accretion, Obscuration, and Outflows (2015, unknown): “…Moe et al. 2009; Wild et al. 2009; Fischer et al. 2010; Humphrey et al. 2010; Dunn et al. 2010; Bautista et al. 2010; Feruglio et al. 2010; Sturm et al. 2011; Rupke & Veilleux 2011; Coil et al. 2011; Greene et al. 2011, 2012; Faucher-Giguère et al. 2012; Borguet et al. 2012; Cicone et al. 2014).”
• Ionised outflows in z $\sim$ 2.4 quasar host galaxies (2015, background): “Recent integral field observations of the [Oiii]λ5007 emission have provided quantitative measurements of the outflowing gas properties in AGN at low redshifts z < 0.5 (e.g. Greene et al. 2011; Harrison et al. 2014).”
• The Coevolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes: Insights from Surveys of the Contemporary Universe (2014, background): “They obtain similar results to Greene et al. (2011) but their complete spatial coverage enables them to better characterize the structure and kinematics (e.g. Fig.”
• Observations of feedback from radio-quiet quasars - I. Extents and morphologies of ionized gas nebulae (2013, methodology): “Over the past few years, we have undertaken a spectroscopic campaign to use the spatial distribution and kinematics of ionized gas to search for any impact of the black hole on the galaxies on large scales (Greene et al. 2011, 2012).”
• The physics of galactic winds driven by active galactic nuclei (2012, background): “We must note, though, that SDSS J1356+1026 is the only one out of 15 obscured quasar studied by Greene et al. (2011) showing such prominent bubbles.”
• THE MULTIPHASE STRUCTURE AND POWER SOURCES OF GALACTIC WINDS IN MAJOR MERGERS (2013, background): “They are in fact radio-quiet QSOs, whose narrow line region sizes can reach several kpc or more (Bennert et al. 2002; Greene et al. 2011).”
• Kiloparsec-scale outflows are prevalent among luminous AGN: outflows and feedback in the context of the overall AGN population (2014, methodology): “However, we note that Greene et al. (2011) provide convincing arguments that the emission line regions in theirz< 0.5 radio-quiet type 2 AGN are likely to be clumpy and that standard mass estimates (such as those we derive below) are likely to be under-estimated.”
• Narrow-line region gas kinematics of 24 264 optically selected AGN: the radio connection (2013, background): “4 GHz ∼ 1023 – 1025 W Hz−1, L[O III] > 1042 erg s−1 ranges have reported outflows extended over galaxy (i.e. ∼few kpc) scales, suggesting that they could be affecting their host galaxies (e.g. Greene et al. 2011; Harrison et al. 2012).”
• The LABOCA survey of the Extended Chandra Deep Field-South: clustering of submillimetre galaxies (2011, background): “Powerful winds are observed in luminous AGN (e.g. Feruglio et al. 2010; Fischer et al. 2010; Greene et al. 2011; Sturm et al. 2011) and have also been seen in some SMGs (e.g. Alexander et al. 2010; Harrison et al., in preparation), although for the SMGs it is unclear whether the winds are driven by…”
• Observations of feedback from radio-quiet quasars – II. Kinematics of ionized gas nebulae (2013, methodology): “Adopting an electron density ne = 100 cm−3 (this is around the critical density of the lines and is what is inferred for the densities from [S II] in Greene et al. 2011; radio galaxies at z = 2–3 also have ne of a few 100 cm−3 as found by Nesvadba et al. 2006, 2008), we find Mgas = (0.2–1) × 109 M…”
• Evidence of strong quasar feedback in the early Universe (2012, background): “2011; Aalto et al. 2012) and the detection of high velocity neutral gas in absorption and of high velocity ionized gas (Nesvadbaet al. 2010; Rupke & Veilleux 2011; Greene et al. 2011).”
• Quasar feedback and the origin of radio emission in radio-quiet quasars (2014, background): “We found strong evidence that ionized gas is extended over scales comparable to or exceeding that of the host galaxy; furthermore, it is kinematically disturbed and is not in equilibrium with the gravitational potential of the galaxy (Greene et al. 2009, 2011; Hainline et al. 2013).”