The broad scientific objective of this project is to take a major step forward in our understanding of active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback by performing a multi-phase outflow census (ionized and molecular gas phases) in a representative sample of nearby obscured quasars. This will serve to identify the outflow properties/phases that are most relevant to galaxy evolution by confronting them with contemporaneous galaxy properties.

Quasar-driven outflows might be capable of regulating galaxy growth by removing, disrupting and/or heating the gas available to form stars, but observational confirmation is still missing because of the complexity of the parameter space involved. QSOFEED constitutes a novel and timely approach to AGN feedback, because it will permit us to gather all the information required to understand this complex outflow/galaxy interplay, which varies from source to source. To do so I propose to use multi-wavelength observations obtained with the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio CANARIAS, ALMA, and eventually the JWST.

To assess the influence of quasar feedback on the host galaxies, we will confront the multi-phase outflow properties with galaxy processes/features taking place on the same timescales (<100 Myr) but on different spatial scales: nuclear star formation and galaxy-wide young stellar populations. By doing so it will be possible to determine the impact of the outflowsor outflows with specific properties (e.g. faster, more extended, more massive, stronger in a given gas phase and/or with certain orientations)on the host galaxies.