No Arabic abstract
We report on the energetics of molecular outflows in 14 local Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIRGs) that show unambiguous outflow signatures (P-Cygni profiles or high-velocity absorption wings) in the far-infrared lines of OH measured with the Herschel/PACS spectrometer. Detection of both ground-state (at 119 and 79 um) and one or more radiatively-excited (at 65 and 84 um) lines allows us to model the nuclear gas (<~300 pc) as well as the more extended components using spherically symmetric radiative transfer models. The highest molecular outflow velocities are found in buried sources, in which slower but massive expansion of the nuclear gas is also observed. With the exception of a few outliers, the outflows have momentum fluxes of (2-5)xL_IR/c and mechanical luminosities of (0.1-0.3)% of L_IR. The moderate momentum boosts in these sources (<~3) suggest that the outflows are mostly momentum-driven by the combined effects of AGN and nuclear starbursts, as a result of radiation pressure, winds, and supernovae remnants. In some sources (~20%), however, powerful (10^{10.5-11} Lsun) AGN feedback and (partially) energy-conserving phases are required, with momentum boosts in the range 3-20. These outflows appear to be stochastic strong-AGN feedback events that occur throughout the merging process. In a few sources, the outflow activity in the innermost regions has subsided in the last ~1 Myr. While OH traces the molecular outflows at sub-kpc scales, comparison of the masses traced by OH with those previously inferred from tracers of more extended outflowing gas suggests that most mass is loaded (with loading factors of Mdot/SFR=1-10) from the central galactic cores (a few x 100 pc). Outflow depletion timescales are <10^8 yr, shorter than the gas consumption timescales by factors of 1.1-15, and are anti-correlated with the AGN luminosity.
We present new CO(2-1) observations of 3 low-z (~350 Mpc) ULIRG systems (6 nuclei) observed with ALMA at high-spatial resolution (~500 pc). We detect massive cold molecular gas outflows in 5 out of 6 nuclei (0.3-5)x10^8 Msun. These outflows are spatially resolved with deprojected radii of 0.25-1 kpc although high-velocity molecular gas is detected up to ~0.5-1.8 kpc (1-6 kpc deprojected). The mass outflow rates are 12-400 Msun/yr and the inclination corrected average velocity of the outflowing gas 350-550 km/s (v_max = 500-900 km/s). The origin of these outflows can be explained by the nuclear starbursts although the contribution of an obscured AGN can not be completely ruled out. The position angle (PA) of the outflowing gas along the kinematic minor axis of the nuclear molecular disk suggests that the outflow axis is perpendicular to the disk for three of these outflows. Only in one case, the outflow PA is clearly not along the kinematic minor axis. The outflow depletion times are 15-80 Myr which are slightly shorter than the star-formation (SF) depletion times (30-80 Myr). However, we estimate that only 15-30% of the outflowing gas will escape the gravitational potential of the nucleus. The majority of the outflowing gas will return to the disk after 5-10 Myr and become available to form new stars. Therefore, these outflows will not likely quench the nuclear starbursts. These outflows would be consistent with being driven by radiation pressure (momentum-driven) only if the coupling between radiation and dust increases with increasing SF rates. This can be achieved if the dust optical depth is higher in objects with higher SF. The relatively small sizes (<1 kpc) and dynamical times (<3 Myr) of the cold molecular outflows suggests that molecular gas cannot survive longer in the outflow environment or that it cannot form efficiently beyond these distances or times. (Abridged)
We report on our observations of the 79 and 119um doublet transitions of OH for 24 local (z<0.262) ULIRGs observed with Herschel-PACS as part of the Herschel ULIRG Survey (HERUS). Some OH119 profiles display a clear P-Cygni shape and therefore imply outflowing OH gas, other profiles are predominantly in absorption or are completely in emission. We find that the relative strength of the OH emission component decreases as the silicate absorption increases. This locates the OH outflows inside the obscured nuclei. The maximum outflow velocities for our sources range from less than 100 to 2000 km/s, with 15/24 (10/24) sources showing OH absorption at velocities exceeding 700 km/s (1000 km/s). Three sources show maximum OH outflow velocities exceeding that of Mrk231. Since outflow velocities above 500-700 km/s are thought to require an active galactic nucleus (AGN) to drive them, about 2/3 of our ULIRG sample may host AGN-driven molecular outflows. This finding is supported by the correlation we find between the maximum OH outflow velocity and the IR-derived bolometric AGN luminosity. No such correlation is found with the IR-derived star formation rate. The highest outflow velocities are found among sources which are still deeply embedded. We speculate that the molecular outflows in these sources may be in an early phase of disrupting the nuclear dust veil before these sources evolve into less obscured AGN. Four of our sources show high-velocity wings in their [C II] fine-structure line profiles implying neutral gas outflow masses of at least 2-4.5 x 10^8 Msun.
We present sensitive high angular resolution ($sim$ 1$$) millimeter continuum and line observations from the massive star forming region DR21(OH) located in the Cygnus X molecular cloud. Within the well-known dusty MM1-2 molecular cores, we report the detection of a new cluster of about ten compact continuum millimeter sources with masses between 5 and 24 M$_odot$, and sizes of a few thousands of astronomical units. These objects are likely to be large dusty envelopes surrounding massive protostars, some of them most probably driving several of the outflows that emanate from this region. Additionally, we report the detection of strong millimeter emission of formaldehyde (H$_2$CO) and methanol (CH$_3$OH) near 218 GHz as well as compact emission from the typical outflow tracers carbon monoxide and silicon monoxide (CO and SiO) toward this massive star-forming region. The H$_2$CO and CH$_3$OH emission is luminous ($sim$ 10$^{-4}$ L$_{odot}$), well resolved, and found along the collimated methanol maser outflow first identified at centimeter wavelengths and in the sources SMA6 and SMA7. Our observations suggest that this maser outflow might be energized by a millimeter source called SMA4 located in the MM2 dusty core. The CO and SiO emission traces some other collimated outflows that emanate from MM1-2 cores, and are not related with the low velocity maser outflow.
We present an analysis of the gas outflow energetics of 529 main-sequence star-forming galaxies at z~1 using KMOS observations of the broad, underlying H-alpha and forbidden lines of [N II] and [S II]. Based on the stacked spectra for a sample with median star-formation rates and stellar masses of SFR ~ 7 Mo/yr and M* = (1.0+/-0.1)x10^10 Mo respectively, we derive a typical mass outflow rate of dM/dt = 1-4 Mo/yr and a mass loading of dM/dt/SFR = 0.2--0.4. The mass loading of the wind does not show a strong trend with star-formation rate over the range SFR ~ 2--20 Mo/yr, although we identify a trend with stellar mass such that dM/dt/SFR ~ M*^(0.26+/-0.07). Finally, we find that the line width of the broad H-alpha increases with disk circular velocity with a sub-linear scaling relation FWHM_broad ~ v^(0.21+/-0.05). As a result of this behavior, in the lowest mass galaxies (M* < 10^10 Mo), a significant fraction of the outflowing gas should have sufficient velocity to escape the gravitational potential of the halo whilst in the highest mass galaxies (M* > 10^10 Mo) most of the gas will be retained, flowing back on to the galaxy disk at later times.
We present the Herschel SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectroscopy (FTS) atlas for a complete flux limited sample of local Ultra-Luminous Infra-Red Galaxies as part of the HERschel ULIRG Survey (HERUS). The data reduction is described in detail and was optimized for faint FTS sources with particular care being taken with the subtraction of the background which dominates the continuum shape of the spectra. Special treatment in the data reduction has been given to any observation suffering from artefacts in the data caused by anomalous instrumental effects to improve the final spectra. Complete spectra are shown covering $200 - 671mu$m with photometry in the SPIRE bands at 250$mu$m, 350$mu$m and 500$mu$m. The spectra include near complete CO ladders for over half of our sample, as well as fine structure lines from [CI] 370 $mu$m, [CI] 609 $mu$m, and [NII] 205 $mu$m. We also detect H$_{2}$O lines in several objects. We construct CO Spectral Line Energy Distributions (SLEDs) for the sample, and compare their slopes with the far-infrared colours and luminosities. We show that the CO SLEDs of ULIRGs can be broadly grouped into three classes based on their excitation. We find that the mid-J (5$<$J$<$8) lines are better correlated with the total far-infrared luminosity, suggesting that the warm gas component is closely linked to recent star-formation. The higher J transitions do not linearly correlate with the far-infrared luminosity, consistent with them originating in hotter, denser gas unconnected to the current star-formation. {bf We conclude that in most cases more than one temperature components are required to model the CO SLEDs.}