The AGNIFS survey: spatially resolved observations of hot molecular and ionized outflows in nearby active galaxies

Abstract

We present the hot molecular and warm ionised gas kinematics for 33 nearby (0.001 ≲ z ≲ 0.056) X-ray selected active galaxies using the H2 2.1218 μm and Brγ emission lines observed in the K-band with the Gemini Near-Infrared Field Spectrograph (NIFS). The observations cover the inner 0.04–2 kpc of each AGN at spatial resolutions of 4-250 pc with a velocity resolution of σinst ≈20 km s−1. We find that 31 objects (94 per cent) present a kinematically disturbed region (KDR) seen in ionised gas, while such regions are observed in hot molecular gas for 25 galaxies (76 per cent). We interpret the KDR as being due to outflows with masses of 102–107 M⊙ and 100–104 M⊙ for the ionised and hot molecular gas, respectively. The ranges of mass-outflow rates ($\dot{M}_{\rm out}$) and kinetic power ($\dot{E}_{\rm K}$) of the outflows are 10−3–101 M⊙ yr−1 and ∼1037–1043 erg s−1 for the ionised gas outflows, and 10−5–10−2 M⊙ yr−1 and 1035–1039 erg s−1 for the hot molecular gas outflows. The median coupling efficiency in our sample is $\dot{E}_{K}/L_{\rm bol}\approx 1.8\times 10^{-3}$ and the estimated momentum fluxes of the outflows suggest they are produced by radiation-pressure in low-density environment, with possible contribution from shocks.

GOALS-JWST: Gas Dynamics and Excitation in NGC 7469 Revealed by NIRSpec

“…In order to investigate the impact of this outflow in the galaxy, we proceed to calculate the mass outflow rates following two different methods. The first follows Equation (4) in Bianchin et al (2022; see also Harrison et al 2014;Fiore et al 2017;Kakkad et al 2020;Riffel et al 2023b). The ionized outflow gas mass (M out ≈ 10 6 M e ) is obtained by adapting Equation (5) from Storchi-Bergmann et al (2009) where F Paα /F Brγ = 12.19, assuming the case B recombination, a temperature of 10,000 K, and an electron density of 500 cm −3 .…”

Observational Tests of Active Galactic Nuclei Feedback: An Overview of Approaches and Interpretation

“…(2) warm ionised (T gas ∼10 3−5 K and n gas ∼10 2−5 cm −3 ), mainly through emission lines detected in the rest-frame UV [129][130][131][132], optical [133][134][135][136][137][138][139] and near-infrared [140][141][142][143];…”

Not So Windy After All: MUSE Disentangles AGN-driven Winds from Merger-induced Flows in Galaxies along the Starburst Sequence

“…Although AGN feedback is expected to be most prominent at the epoch of peak cosmic black hole accretion and star formation at z ∼ 2 (e.g., Merloni & Heinz 2008;Madau & Dickinson 2014), observing AGN feedback in the local Universe offers significant advantages in the resulting signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) and spatial resolution. Local AGN host galaxies are bright enough to allow the detection of weak outflow kinematic components in multiple gas phases (e.g., warm ionized, neutral atomic, warm molecular, and cold molecular; see review by Veilleux et al 2020) in a relatively representative population of galaxies (e.g., Rupke et al 2005aRupke et al , 2005bMullaney et al 2013;Cicone et al 2014;Woo et al 2016;Fiore et al 2017;Baron & Netzer 2019;Mingozzi et al 2019;Lutz et al 2020;Shangguan et al 2020;Riffel et al 2021Riffel et al , 2023Baron et al 2022). In addition, spatially resolved spectroscopy in optical, near-infrared, and millimeter wavelengths can resolve these winds on scales ranging from tens to hundreds of parsecs in local galaxies (e.g., Liu et al 2013aLiu et al , 2013bCicone et al 2014;Davies et al 2014;Harrison et al 2014;Husemann et al 2016;Villar-Martín et al 2016;Rupke et al 2017;Fluetsch et al 2019Fluetsch et al , 2021Mingozzi et al 2019;Wylezalek et al 2020;Perna et al 2021;Revalski et al 2021;Ruschel-Dutra et al 2021;Deconto-Machado et al 2022).…”