Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userOutflows and the Physical Properties of Quasars
158
0
0.0
(
0
)
Authors
Rajib Ganguly
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
We have investigated a sample of 5088 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Second Data Release in order to determine how the frequency and properties of broad absorptions lines (BALs) depend on black hole mass, bolometric luminosity, Eddington fraction (L/L_Edd), and spectral slope. We focus only on high-ionization BALs and find a number of significant results. While quasars accreting near the Eddington limit are more likely to show BALs than lower $L/L_{Edd}$ systems, BALs are present in quasars accreting at only a few percent Eddington. We find a stronger effect with bolometric luminosity, such that the most luminous quasars are more likely to show BALs. There is an additional effect, previously known, that BAL quasars are redder on average than unabsorbed quasars. The strongest effects involving the quasar physical properties and BAL properties are related to terminal outflow velocity. Maximum observed outflow velocities increase with both the bolometric luminosity and the blueness of the spectral slope, suggesting that the ultraviolet luminosity to a great extent determines the acceleration. These results support the idea of outflow acceleration via ultraviolet line scattering.
rate research
Read More
We identify and characterize a population of luminous dust poor quasars at 0<z<5, similar in photometric properties to the objects found at z>6 previously. This class of active galactic nuclei has been known to show little IR emission from a dusty structure, but is yet poorly understood in terms of number evolution or of dependence on physical quantities. In order to better understand the luminous dust poor quasar properties, we compiled a rest-frame UV to IR library of 41,000 optically selected type-1 quasars with $L_{bol}>10^{45.7} erg s^{-1}$. After fitting the broad-band spectral energy distributions (SEDs) with accretion disk and dust components, we find 0.6% of our sample to be hot dust poor with a rest-frame 2.3 micron to 0.51 micron flux density ratio of -0.5 dex or less. The dust poor SEDs are blue in the UV-optical and weak in the MIR, such that their accretion disks are less obscured, and that hot dust emission traces that of warm dust down to the dust poor regime. At a given bolometric luminosity, dust poor quasars are lower in black hole mass and higher in Eddington ratio than general luminous quasars, suggesting that they are in a rapidly growing evolutionary state in which the dust poor phase appears as a short or rare phenomenon. The dust poor fraction increases with redshift, and possible implications for the evolution of the dust poor fraction are discussed.
We have identified ionized outflows in the narrow line region of all but one SDSS type 2 quasars (QSO2) at z<~0.1 (20/21, detection rate 95%), implying that this is a ubiquitous phenomenon in this object class also at the lowest z. The outflowing gas has high densities (n_e>1000 cm-3) and covers a region the size of a few kpc. This implies ionized outflow masses M~(0.3-2.4)x1e6 Msun and mass outflow rates M(dot)<few Msun yr-1. The triggering mechanism of the outflows is related to the nuclear activity. The QSO2 can be classified in two groups according to the behavior and properties of the outflowing gas. QSO2 in Group 1 (5/20 objects) show the most extreme turbulence, they have on average higher radio luminosities and higher excess of radio emission. QSO2 in Group 2 (15/20 objects) show less extreme turbulence, they have lower radio luminosities and, on average, lower or no radio excess. We propose that two competing outflow mechanisms are at work: radio jets and accretion disk winds. Radio jet induced outflows are dominant in Group 1, while disk winds dominate in Group 2. We find that the radio jet mode is capable of producing more extreme outflows. To test this interpretation we predict that: 1) high resolution VLBA imaging will reveal the presence of jets in Group 1 QSO2; 2) the morphology of their extended ionized nebulae must be more highly collimated and kinematically perturbed.
Background quasars are potentially sensitive probes of galactic outflows provided that one can determine the origin of the absorbing material since both gaseous disks and strong bipolar outflows can contribute to the absorption cross-section. Using a dozen quasars passing near spectroscopically identified galaxies at $zsim0.1$, we find that the azimuthal orientation of the quasar sight-lines with strong MgII absorption (with EW>0.3 AA) is bi-modal: about half the MgII sight-lines are aligned with the major axis and the other half are within 30deg. of the minor axis, showing that bipolar outflows contribute significantly to the MgII cross-section. This bi-modality is also present in the instantaneous star-formation rates (SFRs) of the hosts. For the sight-lines aligned along the minor axis, a simple bi-conical wind model is able to reproduce the observed MgII kinematics and the MgII dependence with impact parameter b, (EW $propto b^{-1}$). Using our wind model, we can directly extract key wind properties such as the de-projected outflow speed $V_{out}$ of the cool material traced by MgII and the outflow rates. The outflow speeds are found to be 150-300 kms, i.e. of the order of the circular velocity, and smaller than the escape velocity by a factor of ~2. The outflow rates are typically two to three times the instantaneous SFRs. Our results demonstrates how background quasars can be used to measure wind properties with high precision.
Quasars are galaxies hosting accreting supermassive black holes; due to their brightness, they are unique probes of the early universe. To date, only few quasars have been reported at $z > 6.5$ ($<$800 Myr after the Big Bang). In this work, we present six additional $z gtrsim 6.5$ quasars discovered using the Pan-STARRS1 survey. We use a sample of 15 $z gtrsim 6.5$ quasars to perform a homogeneous and comprehensive analysis of this highest-redshift quasar population. We report four main results: (1) the majority of $zgtrsim$6.5 quasars show large blueshifts of the broad CIV 1549AA$,$emission line compared to the systemic redshift of the quasars, with a median value $sim$3$times$ higher than a quasar sample at $zsim$1; (2) we estimate the quasars black hole masses (M$rm_{BH}sim$0.3$-$5 $times$ 10$^{9}$ M$_{odot}$) via modeling of the MgII 2798AA$,$emission line and rest-frame UV continuum; we find that quasars at high redshift accrete their material (with $langle (L_{mathrm{bol}}/L_{mathrm{Edd}}) rangle = 0.39$) at a rate comparable to a luminosity-matched sample at lower$-$redshift, albeit with significant scatter ($0.4$ dex); (3) we recover no evolution of the FeII/MgII abundance ratio with cosmic time; (4) we derive near zone sizes; together with measurements for $zsim6$ quasars from recent work, we confirm a shallow evolution of the decreasing quasar near zone sizes with redshift. Finally, we present new millimeter observations of the [CII] 158 $mu$m emission line and underlying dust continuum from NOEMA for four quasars, and provide new accurate redshifts and [CII]/infrared luminosities estimates. The analysis presented here shows the large range of properties of the most distant quasars.
Feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) on their host galaxies, in the form of gas outflows capable of quenching star formation, is considered a major player in galaxy evolution. However, clear observational evidence of such major impact is still missing; uncertainties in measuring outflow properties might be partly responsible because of their critical role in comparisons with models and in constraining the impact of outflows on galaxies. Here we briefly review the challenges in measuring outflow physical properties and present an overview of outflow studies from high to low redshift. Finally, we present highlights from our MAGNUM survey of nearby AGN with VLT/MUSE, where the high intrinsic spatial resolution (down to $sim$10 pc) allows us to accurately measure the physical and kinematic properties of ionised gas outflows.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
