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Register a new userStarburst-driven superwinds in quasar host galaxies
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During five decades astronomers have been puzzled by the presence of strong absorption features including metal lines, observed in the optical and ultraviolet spectra of quasars, signalling in- and outflowing gas winds with relative velocities up to several thousands of km/sec. In particular the location of these winds - close to the quasar, further out in its host galaxy, or in its direct environment - and the possible impact on their surroundings have been issues of intense discussion and uncertainty. Using our Herschel Space Observatory data, we report a tendency for this so-called associated metal absorption to occur along with prodigious star formation in the quasar host galaxy, indicating that the two phenomena are likely to be interrelated, that the gas winds likely occur on the kiloparsec scale and would then have a strong impact on the interstellar medium of the galaxy. This correlation moreover would imply that the unusually high cold dust luminosities in these quasars are connected with ongoing star formation. Given that we find no correlation with the AGN strength, the wind feedback which we establish in these radio-loud objects is most likely associated with their host star formation rather than with their black hole accretion.
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This paper presents a detailed analysis of two giant Lyman-alpha (Lya) arcs detected near known galaxies at z=3.038 and z=3.754 lensed by the massive cluster MACS 1206 (z=0.44). The Lya nebulae revealed in deep MUSE observations exhibit a double-peak profile with a dominant red peak that indicates expansion/outflowing motions. One of the arcs stretches over 1 around the Einstein radius of the cluster, resolving the velocity field of the line-emitting gas on kpc scales around a group of three star-forming galaxies of 0.3-1.6L* at z=3.038. The second arc spans 15 in size, roughly centered around a pair of low-mass Lya emitters of ~0.03L* at z=3.754. All three galaxies in the z=3.038 group exhibit prominent damped Lya absorption (DLA) and several metal absorption lines, in addition to nebular emission lines such as HeII1640 and CIII]1906,1908. Extended Lya emission appears to emerge from star-forming regions to larger distances with suppressed surface brightness at the center of each galaxy, suggesting the presence of dusty outflowing cones of size 1-5 kpc across. There are significant spatial variations in the Lya line profile, consistent with the presence of a steep negative velocity gradient in a continuous flow of high column density gas from star-forming regions into a low-density halo environment. While the observed UV nebular line ratios show no evidence of AGN activity in the galaxies, the observed Lya signals can be explained by a combination of resonant scattering and recombination radiation due to photoionization by ionizing photons escaping from the nearby star-forming regions. These observations provide the most detailed insights yet into the kinematics of galactic superwinds associated with star-forming galaxies thought to be responsible for the chemical enrichment in the intergalactic medium.
We present ALMA band-7 data of the [CII] $lambda157.74,mu{rm m}$ emission line and underlying far-infrared (FIR) continuum for twelve luminous quasars at $z simeq 4.8$, powered by fast-growing supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Our total sample consists of eighteen quasars, twelve of which are presented here for the first time. The new sources consists of six Herschel/SPIRE detected systems, which we define as FIR-bright sources, and six Herschel/SPIRE undetected systems, which we define as FIR-faint sources. We determine dust masses for the quasars hosts of $M_{dust} le 0.2-25.0times 10^8 M_{odot}$, implying ISM gas masses comparable to the dynamical masses derived from the [CII] kinematics. It is found that on average the MgII line is blueshifted by $sim 500,{rm km,s}^{-1}$ with respect to the [CII] emission line, which is also observed when complementing our observations with data from the literature. We find that all of our FIR-bright subsample and most of the FIR-faint objects lie above the main sequence of star forming galaxies at $z sim 5$. We detect companion sub-millimeter galaxies (SMGs) for two sources, both FIR-faint, with a range of projected distances of $sim20-60$ kpc and with typical velocity shifts of $left|Delta vright| lesssim200,{rm km,s}^{-1}$ from the quasar hosts. Of our total sample of eighteen quasars, 5/18 are found to have dust obscured starforming companions.
We explore the kinematics of 27 z~6 quasar host galaxies observed in [CII]-158 micron ([CII]) emission with the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array at a resolution of ~0.25. We find that nine of the galaxies show disturbed [CII] emission, either due to a close companion galaxy or recent merger. Ten galaxies have smooth velocity gradients consistent with the emission arising from a gaseous disk. The remaining eight quasar host galaxies show no velocity gradient, suggesting that the gas in these systems is dispersion-dominated. All galaxies show high velocity dispersions with a mean of 129+-10 km/s. To provide an estimate of the dynamical mass within twice the half-light radius of the quasar host galaxy, we model the kinematics of the [CII] emission line using our publicly available kinematic fitting code, qubefit. This results in a mean dynamical mass of 5.0+-0.8(+-3.5) x 10^10 Msun. Comparison between the dynamical mass and the mass of the supermassive black hole reveals that the sample falls above the locally derived bulge mass--black hole mass relation at 2.4sigma significance. This result is robust even if we account for the large systematic uncertainties. Using several different estimators for the molecular mass, we estimate a gas mass fraction of >10%, indicating gas makes up a large fraction of the baryonic mass of z~6 quasar host galaxies. Finally, we speculate that the large variety in [CII] kinematics is an indication that gas accretion onto z~6 super massive black holes is not caused by a single precipitating factor.
We constrain the recent star formation histories of the host galaxies of eight optical/UV-detected tidal disruption events (TDEs). Six hosts had quick starbursts of <200 Myr duration that ended 10 to 1000 Myr ago, indicating that TDEs arise at different times in their hosts post-starburst evolution. If the disrupted star formed in the burst or before, the post-burst age constrains its mass, generally excluding O, most B, and highly massive A stars. If the starburst arose from a galaxy merger, the time since the starburst began limits the coalescence timescale and thus the merger mass ratio to more equal than 12:1 in most hosts. This uncommon ratio, if also that of the central supermassive black hole (SMBH) binary, disfavors the scenario in which the TDE rate is boosted by the binary but is insensitive to its mass ratio. The stellar mass fraction created in the burst is 0.5-10% for most hosts, not enough to explain the observed 30-200x boost in TDE rates, suggesting that the hosts core stellar concentration is more important. TDE hosts have stellar masses 10^9.4 - 10^10.3 Msun, consistent with the SDSS volume-corrected, quiescent Balmer-strong comparison sample and implying SMBH masses of 10^5.5 - 10^7.5 Msun. Subtracting the host absorption line spectrum, we uncover emission lines; at least five hosts have ionization sources inconsistent with star formation that instead may be related to circumnuclear gas, merger shocks, or post-AGB stars.
We analyze the emission line profiles detected in deep optical spectra of quasars to derive the mass of their super-massive black holes (SMBH) following the single-epoch virial method. Our sample consists in 6 radio-loud quasars and 4 radio-quiet quasars. We carefully fit a broad and narrow Gaussian component for each emission line in both the H$beta$ (10 objects) and H$alpha$ regions (5 objects). A very good agreement of the derived SMBH masses, $M_{rm SMBH}$, is found using the fitted broad H$beta$ and H$alpha$ emission lines. We compare our $M_{rm SMBH}$ results with those found by previous studies. We study the relationship between the $M_{rm SMBH}$ of the quasar and the stellar velocity dispersion, $sigma_{*}$, of the host galaxy. We use the measured $M_{rm SMBH}$ and $sigma_{*}$ to investigate the $M_{rm SMBH}$ - $sigma_{*}$ relation for both the radio-loud and radio-quiet subsamples. Besides the scatter, we find a good agreement between radio-quiet quasars and AGN+quiescent galaxies and between radio-loud quasars and AGN. Our analysis does not support the hypothesis of using $sigma$([O III] $lambda$5007) as a surrogate for stellar velocity dispersions in high-mass, high-luminosity quasars. We also investigate the relationship between the 5 GHz radio-continuum luminosity, $L_{rm~5,GHz}$, of the quasar host galaxy with both $M_{rm SMBH}$ and $sigma_{*}$. We do not find any correlation between $L_{rm 5,GHz}$ and $M_{rm SMBH}$, although we observe a trend that galaxies with larger stellar velocity dispersions have larger $L_{rm 5,GHz}$. Using the results of our fitting for the narrow emission lines of [O III] $lambda$5007 and [N II] $lambda$6583 we estimate the gas-phase oxygen abundance of six quasars, being sub-solar in all cases.
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