Kavli Affiliate: Luis C. Ho
| First 5 Authors: Yongda Zhu, Marcia J. Rieke, Luis C. Ho, Yang Sun, George H. Rieke
| Summary:
Accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs) regulate the evolution of their
host galaxies through powerful outflows and multi-phase feedback. This process
plays a crucial role in shaping SMBH-galaxy co-evolution across cosmic time,
but direct evidence linking nuclear winds to large-scale cold gas outflows,
particularly in high-redshift quasars, has remained elusive. Here we present
statistical evidence of a connection between nuclear winds and large-scale cold
gas outflows in quasars at $z sim 5.5$. Using stacked [C II] 158 $mu$m
emission profiles from ALMA observations, which trace galactic-scale neutral
gas, we compare broad absorption line (BAL) quasars — tracing parsec- to
sub-kiloparsec-scale nuclear winds — with non-BAL quasars. The BAL stack
reveals a significant (S/N=4.45) broad component in the [C II] emission,
indicating high-velocity neutral gas outflows with a velocity offset of $Delta
v_{rm b} = -2.1 times 10^2 , rm km,s^{-1}$ and a full width at half
maximum of $1.18 times 10^3 , rm km,s^{-1}$, while the non-BAL stack shows
no such feature. We estimate that a few percent up to one-quarter of the BAL
wind energy is transferred to neutral gas on kiloparsec scales. These findings
provide direct observational evidence that nuclear winds couple with
galactic-scale neutral gas flows, supporting multi-phase AGN feedback models.
This mechanism may contribute to explaining the diversity of $M_{rm BH}/M_*$
ratios observed in some luminous AGN recently observed by JWST, compared to the
Magorrian relation.
| Search Query: ArXiv Query: search_query=au:”Luis C. Ho”&id_list=&start=0&max_results=3