paper

The Limited Impact of Outflows: Integral-Field Spectroscopy of 20 Local AGNs

arXiv:1702.01900 · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aa5f5c

Abstract

To investigate AGN outflows as a tracer of AGN feedback on star-formation, we perform integral-field spectroscopy of 20 type 2 AGNs at z<0.1, which are luminous AGNs with the [O III] luminosity >10 erg/s, and exhibit strong outflow signatures in the [O III] kinematics. By decomposing the emission-line profile, we obtain the maps of the narrow and broad components of [O III] and H lines, respectively. The broad components in both [O III] and H represent the non-gravitational kinematics, i.e., gas outflows, while the narrow components, especially in H, represent the gravitational kinematics, i.e., rotational disk. By using the integrated spectra within the flux-weighted size of the narrow-line region, we estimate the energetics of the gas outflows. The ionized gas mass is 1.0-38.5 , and the mean mass outflow rate is 4.64.3 /yr, which is a factor of ~260 higher than the mean mass accretion rate 0.020.01 /yr. The mean energy injection rate of the sample is 0.80.6% of the AGN bolometric luminosity, while the momentum flux is (5.43.6) /c on average, except for two most kinematically energetic AGNs with low , which are possibly due to the dynamical timescale of the outflows. The estimated outflow energetics are consistent with the theoretical expectations for energy-conserving outflows from AGNs, yet we find no supporting evidence of instantaneous quenching of star formation due to the outflows.

arXiv comment25 pages, 27 figures, 5 tables; Accepted for publication in ApJ

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