An ALMA CO(2–1) Survey of Nearby Palomar–Green Quasars

Shangguan, J.; Ho, Luis C.; Bauer, F. E.; Wang, Ran; Treister, Ezequiel

doi:10.3847/1538-4365/ab5db2

Cited by 53 publications

(101 citation statements)

References 96 publications

(132 reference statements)

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“…Quasars of roughly the same bolometric luminosity (log L bol = 45.7-46.3 erg s −1 ) and hosted in galaxies of similar stellar masses (log M * = 10.9-11.3 M ) have CO luminosities spanning over more than one order of magnitude. This is in contradiction with the idea that all low-redshift, opticallyselected quasars reside in gas-rich host galaxies and not in ellipticals (e.g., Scoville et al 2003;Shangguan et al 2020b).…”

Section: Integrated Co Luminositiescontrasting

confidence: 76%

“…16 we show the IR-CO(2−1) relation of Greve et al (2014), derived from a sample of nearby LIRGs and ULIRGs at z ≤ 0.1 and submillimeter galaxies at z > 1. We also include ALMA Compact Array (ACA) measurements for PG quasars at z < 0.1 with L bol = 44.27 ± 0.36 erg s −1 from Shangguan et al (2020b). These bolometric luminosities are closer to the values measured for Seyfert galaxies than for quasars, and indeed, they have lower IR and CO luminosities than the five QSO2s with CO(2−1) detections.…”

Section: Integrated Co Luminositiesmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…This relation (log L FIR = 1.15 log L CO + 0.02) has a scatter of 0.31 dex and it corresponds to CO(1−0) instead of CO(2−1), so we assume r 21 = 1 and use L IR = 1.3 × L FIR to estimate total IR luminosity as indicated in Genzel et al (2010). Pink plus symbols are the PG quasars at z < 0.1 from Shangguan et al (2020b), open diamonds the PUMA ULIRGs at z < 0.16 from Pereira-Santaella et al ( 2021), and blue asterisks the QSO2s at z ∼ 0.1 from Jarvis et al (2020). The APEX L CO(2−1) of J1010 is higher than the corresponding ALMA value because it includes two companion galaxies, it is lower in the case of J1100, equal for J1430, and for J1356 is an upper limit.…”

Section: Co Morphologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The diverse cold molecular gas contents, morphologies, and kinematics of type-2 quasars as seen by ALMA

Almeida

Bischetti

García‐Burillo

et al. 2022

A&A

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We present CO(2−1) and adjacent continuum observations of seven nearby radio-quiet type-2 quasars (QSO2s) obtained with ALMA at ∼0.2″ resolution (370 pc at z ∼ 0.1). These QSO2s are luminous (L[OIII] > 108.5 L⊙ ∼ MB < −23), and their host galaxies massive (M* ∼ 1011 M⊙). The CO morphologies are diverse, including disks and interacting systems. Two of the QSO2s are red early-type galaxies with no CO(2–1) detected. In the interacting galaxies, the central kiloparsec contains 18–25% of the total cold molecular gas, whereas in the spirals it is only ∼5–12%. J1010+0612 and J1430+1339 show double-peaked CO flux maps along the major axis of the CO disks that do not have an optical counterpart at the same angular resolution. Based on our analysis of the ionized and molecular gas kinematics and millimeter continuum emission, these CO morphologies are most likely produced by active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback in the form of outflows, jets, and/or shocks. The CO kinematics of the QSO2s with CO(2−1) detections are dominated by rotation but also reveal noncircular motions. According to our analysis, these noncircular motions correspond to molecular outflows that are mostly coplanar with the CO disks in four of the QSO2s, and either to a coplanar inflow or vertical outflow in the case of J1010+0612. These outflows represent 0.2–0.7% of the QSO2s’ total molecular gas mass and have maximum velocities of 200–350 km s−1, radii from 0.4 to 1.3 kpc, and outflow mass rates of 8–16 M⊙ yr−1. These outflow properties are intermediate between those of the mild molecular outflows measured for Seyfert galaxies and the fast and energetic outflows shown by ultra-luminous infrared galaxies. This suggests that it is not only AGN luminosity that drives massive molecular outflows. Other factors such as jet power, coupling between winds, jets, and/or ionized outflows and the CO disks, and amount or geometry of dense gas in the nuclear regions might also be relevant. Thus, although we do not find evidence for a significant impact of quasar feedback on the total molecular gas reservoirs and star formation rates, it appears to be modifying the distribution of cold molecular gas in the central kiloparsec of the galaxies.

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Section: Integrated Co Luminositiescontrasting

confidence: 76%

Section: Integrated Co Luminositiesmentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Co Morphologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The diverse cold molecular gas contents, morphologies, and kinematics of type-2 quasars as seen by ALMA

Almeida

Bischetti

García‐Burillo

et al. 2022

A&A

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“…2.2), we exploited this set of physical parameters by investigating potential trends of L CO /L FIR and L CO /M * with respect to AGN bolometric luminosity, obscuring column density, X-ray luminosity and Eddington ratio 9 . We do not find any significant correlation with these properties (e.g., Shangguan et al 2020a). As for the bolometric luminosity, there is a known limitation due to different timescales of the physical processes probed by L FIR and L bol .…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 59%

Super

Circosta

Mainieri

Lamperti

et al. 2021

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Feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) is thought to be key in shaping the life cycle of their host galaxies by regulating star-formation activity. Therefore, to understand the impact of AGN on star formation, it is essential to trace the molecular gas out of which stars form. In this paper we present the first systematic study of the CO properties of AGN hosts at z ≈ 2 for a sample of 27 X-ray selected AGN spanning two orders of magnitude in AGN bolometric luminosity (log Lbol / erg s−1 = 44.7 − 46.9) by using ALMA Band 3 observations of the CO(3-2) transition (∼1″ angular resolution). To search for evidence of AGN feedback on the CO properties of the host galaxies, we compared our AGN with a sample of inactive (i.e., non-AGN) galaxies from the PHIBSS survey with similar redshift, stellar masses, and star-formation rates (SFRs). We used the same CO transition as a consistent proxy for the gas mass for the two samples in order to avoid systematics involved when assuming conversion factors (e.g., excitation corrections and αCO). By adopting a Bayesian approach to take upper limits into account, we analyzed CO luminosities as a function of stellar masses and SFRs, as well as the ratio LCO(3–2)′/M∗ (a proxy for the gas fraction). The two samples show statistically consistent trends in the LCO(3–2)′−LFIR and LCO(3–2)′−M∗ planes. However, there are indications that AGN feature lower CO(3-2) luminosities (0.4–0.7 dex) than inactive galaxies at the 2–3σ level when we focus on the subset of parameters where the results are better constrained (i.e., LFIR ≈ 1012.2 L⊙ and M* > 1011 M⊙) and on the distribution of the mean log(LCO(3–2)′/M∗). Therefore, even by conservatively assuming the same excitation factor r31, we would find lower molecular gas masses in AGN, and assuming higher r31 would exacerbate this difference. We interpret our result as a hint of the potential effect of AGN activity (such as radiation and outflows), which may be able to heat, excite, dissociate, and/or deplete the gas reservoir of the host galaxies. Better SFR measurements and deeper CO observations for AGN as well as larger and more uniformly selected samples of both AGN and inactive galaxies are required to confirm whether there is a true difference between the two populations.

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“…6.2. We also include low-redshift AGN samples, such as (i) Palomar Green (PG) QSOs with CO(2−1) based molecular gas masses (Shangguan et al 2020); (ii) X-ray selected INTEGRAL/IBIS AGN, characterised by log(L Bol /erg s −1 ) ∼ 43.5−45.6, with CO(1−0) and CO(2−1) measurements from the IBISCO survey (Feruglio et al, in prep.). We consider (iii) active galaxies with evidence of AGN-driven molecular outflows from Fiore et al (2017), Brusa et al (2018), Fluetsch et al (2019), Herrera-Camus et al (2019.…”

Section: Gas Fraction and Feedback From Qso Windsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The WISSH quasars project

Bischetti

Feruglio

Piconcelli

et al. 2020

A&A

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Context. Sources at the brightest end of the quasi-stellar object (QSO) luminosity function, during the peak epoch in the history of star formation and black hole accretion (z ∼ 2−4, often referred to as “Cosmic noon”) are privileged sites to study the cycle of feeding & feedback processes in massive galaxies. Aims. We aim to perform the first systematic study of cold gas properties in the most luminous QSOs, by characterising their host-galaxies and environment. These targets exhibit indeed widespread evidence of outflows at nuclear and galactic scales. Methods. We analyse ALMA, NOEMA and JVLA observations of the far-infrared continuum, CO and [CII] emission lines in eight QSOs (bolometric luminosity LBol ≳ 3 × 1047 erg s−1) from the WISE-SDSS selected hyper-luminous (WISSH) QSOs sample at z ∼ 2.4−4.7. Results. We report a 100% emission line detection rate and a 80% detection rate in continuum emission, and we find CO emission to be consistent with the steepest CO ladders observed so far. Sub-millimetre data reveal presence of (one or more) bright companion galaxies around ∼80% of WISSH QSOs, at projected distances of ∼6−130 kpc. We observe a variety of sizes for the molecular gas reservoirs (∼1.7−10 kpc), mostly associated with rotating disks with disturbed kinematics. WISSH QSOs typically show lower CO luminosity and higher star formation efficiency than infrared matched, z ∼ 0−3 main-sequence galaxies, implying that, given the observed SFR ∼170−1100 M⊙ yr−1, molecular gas is converted into stars in ≲50 Myr. Most targets show extreme dynamical to black-hole mass ratios Mdyn/MBH ∼ 3−10, two orders of magnitude smaller than local relations. The molecular gas fraction in the host-galaxies of WISSH is lower by a factor of ∼10−100 than in star forming galaxies with similar M*. Conclusions. Our analysis reveals that hyper-luminous QSOs at Cosmic noon undergo an intense growth phase of both the central super-massive black hole and of the host-galaxy. These systems pinpoint the high-density sites where giant galaxies assemble, where we show that mergers play a major role in the build-up of the final host-galaxy mass. We suggest that the observed low molecular gas fraction and short depletion timescale are due to AGN feedback, whose presence is indicated by fast AGN-driven ionised outflows in all our targets.

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An ALMA CO(2–1) Survey of Nearby Palomar–Green Quasars

Cited by 53 publications

References 96 publications

The diverse cold molecular gas contents, morphologies, and kinematics of type-2 quasars as seen by ALMA

The diverse cold molecular gas contents, morphologies, and kinematics of type-2 quasars as seen by ALMA

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The WISSH quasars project

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