Bibcode
Villar-Martín, M.; Arribas, S.; Emonts, B.; Humphrey, A.; Tadhunter, C.; Bessiere, P.; Cabrera Lavers, A.; Ramos Almeida, C.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 460, Issue 1, p.130-162
Advertised on:
7
2016
Citations
64
Refereed citations
61
Description
We investigate the presence of extended ionized outflows in 18 luminous
type 2 AGNs (11 quasars and 7 high-luminosity Seyfert 2s) at 0.3 < z
< 0.6 based on VLT-FORS2 spectroscopy. We infer typical lower limits
on the radial sizes of the outflows Ro ≳ several ×
100 pc and upper limits Ro ≲ 1-2 kpc. Our results are
inconsistent with related studies which suggest that large scale
(Ro ˜ several-15 kpc) are ubiquitous in QSO2. We study
the possible causes of discrepancy and propose that seeing smearing is
the cause of the large inferred sizes. The implications in our
understanding of the feedback phenomenon are important since the mass
Mo (through the density), mass injection dot{M}_o and energy
injection dot{E}_o rates of the outflows become highly uncertain. One
conclusion seems unavoidable: Mo, dot{M}_o and dot{E}_o are
modest or low compared with previous estimations. We obtain typically
Mo ≲ (0.4-22) × 106 M⊙
(median 1.1 × 106 M⊙) assuming n = 1000
cm-3. These are ˜102-104 times
lower than values reported in the literature. Even under the most
favourable assumptions, we obtain dot{M}_o≲ 10 M⊙
yr-1 in general, 100-1000 times lower than claimed in related
studies. Although the uncertainties are large, it is probable that these
are lower than typical star-forming rates. In conclusion, no evidence is
found supporting that typical outflows can affect the interstellar
medium of the host galaxies across spatial scales ≳ 1-2 kpc.