Detection of extended millimeter emission in the host galaxy of 3C273 and its implications for QSO feedback via high dynamic range ALMA imaging

Abstract

We estimate the amount of negative feedback energy injected into the ISM of the host galaxy of 3C273, a prototypical radio loud quasar. We obtained 93, 233 and 343 GHz continuum images with the Atacama Large Millimeter/Sub-millimeter Array (ALMA). After self calibration and point source subtraction, we reach an image dynamic range of $\sim 85000$ at 93\ GHz, $\sim 39000$ at 233\ GHz and $\sim 2500$ at 343\ GHz. These are currently the highest image dynamic range obtained using ALMA. We detect spatially extended millimeter emission associated with the host galaxy, cospatial with the Extended Emission Line Region (EELR) observed in the optical. The millimeter spectral energy distribution and comparison with centimeter data show that the extended emission cannot be explained by dust thermal emission, synchrotron or thermal bremsstrahlung arising from massive star formation. We interpret the extended millimeter emission as thermal bremsstrahlung from gas directly ionized by the central source. The extended flux indicates that at least $\sim 7\%$ of the bolometric flux of the nuclear source was used to ionize atomic hydrogen in the host galaxy. The ionized gas is estimated to be as massive as $10^{10}$ to $10^{11}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$, but the molecular gas fraction with respect to the stellar mass is consistent with other ellipticals, suggesting that direct ionization ISM by the QSO may not be sufficient to suppress star formation, or we are witnessing a short timescale before negative feedback becomes observable. The discovery of a radio counterpart to EELRs provides a new pathway to studying the QSO-host ISM interaction.

References in corpus (23)

• Mass and environment as drivers of galaxy evolution in SDSS and zCOSMOS and the origin of the Schechter function
• Strong Nebular Line Ratios in the Spectra of z~2-3 Star-forming Galaxies: First Results from KBSS-MOSFIRE
• Molecular line emission in NGC1068 imaged with ALMA. I An AGN-driven outflow in the dense molecular gas
• Star formation in a galactic outflow
• The Radio Spectral Energy Distribution and Star Formation Rate Calibration in Galaxies
• The Galaxy Activity, Torus and Outflow Survey (GATOS) I. ALMA images of dusty molecular tori in Seyfert galaxies
• Quasar Feedback in the Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxy F11119+3257: Connecting the Accretion Disk Wind with the Large-Scale Molecular Outflow
• Extended Emission-Line Regions: Remnants of Quasar Superwinds?
• The COSMOS [OII] Survey: Evolution of Electron Density with Star Formation Rate
• Close entrainment of massive molecular gas flows by radio bubbles in the central galaxy of Abell 1795
• The Close AGN Reference Survey (CARS). A massive multi-phase outflow impacting the edge-on galaxy HE1353-1917
• Ionized gas outflows in infrared-bright dust-obscured galaxies selected with WISE and SDSS
• Cold gas in group-dominant elliptical galaxies
• The combined effect of AGN and supernovae feedback in launching massive molecular outflows in high-redshift galaxies
• Jet-driven galaxy-scale gas outflows in the hyper-luminous quasar 3C273
• Free-free and H42alpha emission from the dusty starburst within NGC 4945 as observed by ALMA
• Extended emission-line regions in low-redshift quasars: Dependence on nuclear spectral properties
• Radiation pressure confinement -- V. The predicted free-free absorption and emission in active galactic nuclei
• Sizing Up the Milky Way: A Bayesian Mixture Model Meta-Analysis of Photometric Scale Length Measurements
• No sign of strong molecular gas outflow in an infrared-bright dust-obscured galaxy with strong ionized-gas outflow
• Molecular Gas Outflow in the Starburst Galaxy NGC 1482
• Star formation traced by optical and millimeter hydrogen recombination lines and free-free emissions in the dusty merging galaxy NGC 3256 -- MUSE/VLT and ALMA synergy
• The Detection of Diffuse Extended Structure in 3C~273: Implications for Jet Power