Wind from the black-hole accretion disk driving a molecular outflow in an active galaxy

Abstract

Powerful winds driven by active galactic nuclei are often thought to affect the evolution of both supermassive black holes and their host galaxies, quenching star formation and explaining the close relationship between black holes and galaxies. Recent observations of large-scale molecular outflows in ultraluminous infrared galaxies support this quasar-feedback idea, because they directly trace the gas from which stars form. Theoretical models suggest that these outflows originate as energy-conserving flows driven by fast accretion-disk winds. Proposed connections between large-scale molecular outflows and accretion-disk activity in ultraluminous galaxies were incomplete because no accretion-disk wind had been detected. Conversely, studies of powerful accretion-disk winds have until now focused only on X-ray observations of local Seyfert galaxies and a few higher-redshift quasars. Here we report observations of a powerful accretion-disk wind with a mildly relativistic velocity (a quarter that of light) in the X-ray spectrum of IRAS F11119+3257, a nearby (redshift 0.189) optically classified type 1 ultraluminous infrared galaxy hosting a powerful molecular outflow. The active galactic nucleus is responsible for about 80 per cent of the emission, with a quasar-like luminosity of 1.5 × 10(46) ergs per second. The energetics of these two types of wide-angle outflows is consistent with the energy-conserving mechanism that is the basis of the quasar feedback in active galactic nuclei that lack powerful radio jets (such jets are an alternative way to drive molecular outflows).

Black hole winds II: Hyper-Eddington winds and feedback

“…Cicone et al 2014 andreferences therein, andTombesi et al 2015) agree very well with the predictions (27,28). Note that the molecular outflow quantities v out ,Ṁ out are quite distinct from the black hole wind velocity v and outflow rateṀ w , with v ∼ 0.1c v out andṀ w Ṁ out .…”

“…Note that the molecular outflow quantities v out ,Ṁ out are quite distinct from the black hole wind velocity v and outflow rateṀ w , with v ∼ 0.1c v out andṀ w Ṁ out . The observations of Tombesi et al (2015) report both of these distinct velocities and mass rates.…”

The Complex Circumnuclear Environment of the Broad-Line Radio Galaxy 3c 390.3 Revealed by Chandra Hetg

“…, where μ=1.4, m p is the proton mass, and C F is the covering fraction (e.g., Crenshaw & Kraemer 2012;Tombesi et al 2015). Substituting the values in Table 3, the lower and upper limits in the distance, and the typical value C F ;0.5 (Crenshaw & Kraemer 2012;Tombesi et al 2013a, we obtain the values  M ouṫ 0.01-15M e yr −1 .…”

“…It is becoming clear that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) may play an important role in galaxy evolution through a process known as "feedback" (e.g., Silk & Rees 1998;Fabian 1999;Veilleux et al 2013;Nardini et al 2015;Tombesi et al 2015). Depending on whether it is mediated by winds or jets, it is commonly referred to as "quasar" or "radio" mode feedback (e.g., Fabian 2012; King & Pounds 2015).…”

Hubble Space Telescope observations of BALQSO Ton 34 reveal a connection between the broad-line region and the BAL outflow

“…The recently discovered X-ray ultra-fast outflow winds (X-ray detected winds with outflow velocities larger than 10,000 km s −1 ) also have high enough mass and kinetic outflow rates in order to produce feedback (e.g. Gupta et al 2015, 2013b, Tombesi et al 2015, Longinotti et al 2015. However, the role of AGN winds in galaxy evolution has not yet been proven.…”