Quantifying the thermal Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect and excess millimetre emission in quasar environments

Abstract

In this paper we probe the hot, post-shock gas component of quasar-driven winds through the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect. Combining datasets from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, the Herschel Space Observatory, and the Very Large Array, we measure average spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of 109,829 opticallyselected, radio quiet quasars from 1.4 GHz to 3000 GHz in six redshift bins between 0.3 < z < 3.5. We model the emission components in the radio and far-infrared, plus a spectral distortion from the tSZ effect. At z > 1.91, we measure the tSZ effect at 3.8σ significance with an amplitude corresponding to a total thermal energy of 3.1 × 10 60 ergs. If this energy is due to virialized gas, then our measurement implies quasar host halo masses are ∼ 6 × 10 12 h −1 M . Alternatively, if the host dark matter halo masses are ∼ 2 × 10 12 h −1 M as some measurements suggest, then we measure a >90 per cent excess in the thermal energy over that expected due to virialization. If the measured SZ effect is primarily due to hot bubbles from quasar-driven winds, we find that (5 +1.2 −1.3 ) per cent of the quasar bolometric luminosity couples to the intergalactic medium over a fiducial quasar lifetime of 100 Myr. An additional source of tSZ may be correlated structure, and further work is required to separate the contributions. At z ≤ 1.91, we detect emission at 95 and 148 GHz that is in excess of thermal dust and optically thin synchrotron emission. We investigate potential sources of this excess emission, finding that CO line emission and an additional optically thick synchrotron component are the most viable candidates.

Spatially Resolved UV Diagnostics of AGN Feedback: Radiation Pressure Dominates in a Prototypical Quasar-driven Superwind

“…Based on the observed highly ionized UV emission ratios, we rule out the presence of a dynamically important hot wind phase and place an upper limit on the pressure a hot wind may impart to the UV emitting clouds at 10 kpc. This upper limit is an order-of-magnitude lower than recent estimates based on tentative detections (3 − 4σ) of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect around quasars at z ∼ 2 − 3 (Hall et al 2019;Lacy et al 2019). This tension can be reconciled if AGN feedback varies significantly from object-to-object (e.g.…”

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Sixteenth Data Release

“…While the primary objectives of eBOSS and other SDSS-IV programs informed the target selection for quasars in DR16Q (see Section 2.2), eBOSS quasar catalogs have been used in a number of other recent research studies beyond the eBOSS core programs. These include, but are certainly not limited to, the study of changing-look quasars, which can be used to investigate accretion mechanisms and other quasar physics (Sheng et al 2020); X-ray studies of the clustering of quasars, which can also give insight into the growth and evolution of supermassive black holes (Powell et al 2020); studies of the correlation between X-ray and emission-line luminosities (Timlin et al 2020); studies of quasar outflows in the far-infrared and radio bands via follow-up of optically confirmed quasars (Hall et al 2019); studies of the correlation of outflow velocities with bolometric luminosity in broad absorption-line (BAL) quasars (Bruni et al 2019); and studies of the variability in BAL troughs over time (Grier et al 2016;McGraw et al 2017). To help facilitate these sorts of quasar studies, DR16Q includes multiple redshift estimates, BAL and damped Lyα (DLA) quasar identifications, and compiled multiwavelength data.…”

Multiphase Outflows in High-redshift Quasar Host Galaxies

“…Recent theoretical and observational works have suggested that the energy and momentum in galaxy outflows are shared between multiple phases of the gas. These gas phases span a wide range of densities and temperatures, from the dense cold molecular and neutral gas (T ∼ 10-300 K) to the diffuse hot postshock medium (T > 10 7 K; Crichton et al 2016;Hall et al 2019). There have been several studies of multiphase outflows in distant quasars focusing on individual systems (Vayner et al 2017;Brusa et al 2018;Herrera-Camus et al 2019) and studying the cold molecular and ionized gas phase in galactic outflows.…”