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Register a new userOutflows Driven by Quasars in High-Redshift Galaxies with Radiation Hydrodynamics
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The quasar mode of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) in the high-redshift Universe is routinely observed in gas-rich galaxies together with large-scale AGN-driven winds. It is crucial to understand how photons emitted by the central AGN source couple to the ambient interstellar-medium to trigger large-scale outflows. By means of radiation-hydrodynamical simulations of idealised galactic discs, we study the coupling of photons with the multiphase galactic gas, and how it varies with gas cloud sizes, and the radiation bands included in the simulations, which are ultraviolet (UV), optical, and infrared (IR). We show how a quasar with a luminosity of $10^{46}$ erg/s can drive large-scale winds with velocities of $10^2-10^3$ km/s and mass outflow rates around $10^3$ M$_odot$/yr for times of order a few million years. Infrared radiation is necessary to efficiently transfer momentum to the gas via multi-scattering on dust in dense clouds. However, IR multi-scattering, despite being extremely important at early times, quickly declines as the central gas cloud expands and breaks up, allowing the radiation to escape through low gas density channels. The typical number of multi-scattering events for an IR photon is only about a quarter of the mean optical depth from the center of the cloud. Our models account for the observed outflow rates of $sim$500-1000 M$_odot$/yr and high velocities of $sim 10^3$ km/s, favouring winds that are energy-driven via extremely fast nuclear outflows, interpreted here as being IR-radiatively-driven winds.
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It is common to assume that all narrow absorption lines (NALs) at extreme high-velocity shifts form in cosmologically intervening gas or galaxies unrelated to quasars. However, previous detailed studies of individual quasars have shown that some NALs at these large velocity shifts do form in high-speed quasar ejecta. We search for extreme high-velocity NAL outflows (with speeds $sim$0.1-0.2c) based on relationships with associated absorption lines (AALs) and broad absorption-line (BAL) outflows. We find that high-velocity NALs are strongly correlated with AALs, BALs, and radio loudness, indicating that a significant fraction of high-velocity systems are either ejected from the quasars or form in material swept up by the radio jets (and are not unrelated intervening gas). We also consider line-locked C IV doublets as another indicator of high-velocity NALs formed in outflows. The fact that line-locked NALs are highly ionized and correlated with BAL outflows and radio-loud quasars implies that physical line locking due to radiative forces is both common and real, which provides indirect evidence that a significant fraction of high-velocity NALs are intrinsic to quasars.
We study outflows driven by Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) using high- resolution simulations of idealized z=2 isolated disk galaxies. Episodic accretion events lead to outflows with velocities >1000 km/s and mass outflow rates up to the star formation rate (several tens of Msun/yr). Outflowing winds escape perpendicular to the disk with wide opening angles, and are typically asymmetric (i.e. unipolar) because dense gas above or below the AGN in the resolved disk inhibits outflow. Owing to rapid variability in the accretion rates, outflowing gas may be detectable even when the AGN is effectively off. The highest velocity outflows are sometimes, but not always, concentrated within 2-3 kpc of the galactic center during the peak accretion. With our purely thermal AGN feedback model -- standard in previous literature -- the outflowing material is mostly hot (10^6 K) and diffuse (nH<10^(-2) cm-3), but includes a cold component entrained in the hot wind. Despite the powerful bursts and high outflow rates, AGN feedback has little effect on the dense gas in the galaxy disk. Thus AGN-driven outflows in our simulations do not cause rapid quenching of star-formation, although they may remove significant amounts of gas of long (>Gyr) timescales.
Recent stacked ALMA observations have revealed that normal, star-forming galaxies at $zapprox 6$ are surrounded by extended ($approx 10,mathrm{kpc}$) [CII] emitting halos which are not predicted by the most advanced, zoom-in simulations. We present a model in which these halos are the result of supernova-driven cooling outflows. Our model contains two free parameters, the outflow mass loading factor, $eta$, and the parent galaxy dark matter halo circular velocity, $v_c$. The outflow model successfully matches the observed [CII] surface brightness profile if $eta = 3.20 pm 0.10$ and $v_c = 170 pm 10{,rm km,s^{-1}}$, corresponding to a dynamical mass of $approx 10^{11}, mathrm{M}_odot$. The predicted outflow rate and velocity range are $128 pm 5 ,mathrm{M}_odot {rm yr}^{-1}$ and $300-500 {,rm km,s^{-1}}$, respectively. We conclude that: (a) extended halos can be produced by cooling outflows; (b) the large $eta$ value is marginally consistent with starburst-driven outflows, but it might indicate additional energy input from AGN; (c) the presence of [CII] halos requires an ionizing photon escape fraction from galaxies $f_{rm esc} ll 1$. The model can be readily applied also to individual high-$z$ galaxies, as those observed, e.g., by the ALMA ALPINE survey now becoming available.
Low excitation radio galaxies (LERGs) are weakly accreting active galactic nuclei (AGN) believed to be fuelled by radiatively inefficient accretion processes. Despite this, recent works have shown evidence for ionized and neutral hydrogen gas outflows in these galaxies. To investigate the potential drivers of such outflows we select a sample of 802 LERGs using the Best & Heckman (2012) catalogue of radio galaxies. By modelling the [O III] $lambda 5007$ profile in Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectra of a sample of 802 LERGs, we determine that the ionized outflows are present in $sim 1.5%$ of the population. Using $1.4~text{GHz}$ imaging from the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty Centimeters survey we analyze the radio morphology of LERGs with outflows and find these to be consistent with the parent LERG population. However, we note that unlike the majority of the LERG population, those LERGs showing outflows have Eddington scaled accretion rates close to $1%$. This is indicative that ionized outflows in LERGs are driven by the radiation pressure from the accretion disk of the AGN rather than the radio jets. We report specific star formation rates in the range of $10^{-12} < text{sSFR} < 10^{-9}~text{yr}^{-1}$. Moreover, we observe higher mass outflow rates of $7-150~M_{odot}~text{yr}^{-1}$ for these LERGs than luminous quasars for a given bolometric luminosity, which could possibly be due to the radio source in LERGs boosting the mass-loading. This scenario could indicate that these outflows could potentially drive feedback in LERGs.
We use MUSE adaptive optics (AO) data in Narrow Field Mode to study the properties of the ionised gas in MR 2251-178 and PG 1126-041, two nearby (z~0.06) bright quasars hosting sub-pc scale Ultra Fast Outflows (UFOs) detected in the X-ray band. We decompose the optical emission from diffuse gas into a low- and a high-velocity components. The former is characterised by a clean, regular velocity field and a low (~80 km/s) velocity dispersion. It traces regularly rotating gas in PG 1126-041, while in MR 2251-178 it is possibly associated to tidal debris from a recent merger or flyby. The other component is found to be extended up to a few kpc from the nuclei, and shows a high (~800 km/s) velocity dispersion and a blue-shifted mean velocity, as expected from AGN-driven outflows. We estimate mass outflow rates up to a few Mo/yr and kinetic efficiencies between 0.1-0.4 per cent, in line with those of galaxies hosting AGNs of similar luminosity. The momentum rates of these ionised outflows are comparable to those measured for the UFOs at sub-pc scales, consistent with a momentum-driven wind propagation. Pure energy-driven winds are excluded unless about 100x additional momentum is locked in massive molecular winds. By comparing the outflow properties of our sources with those of a small sample of well-studied QSOs hosting UFOs from the literature, we find that winds seem to systematically lie either in a momentum-driven or in an energy-driven regime, indicating that these two theoretical models bracket very well the physics of AGN-driven winds.
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