Journal article
Extended Emission-Line Regions: Remnants of Quasar Superwinds?
The Astrophysical journal, Vol.690(1), pp.953-973
09/05/2008
DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/690/1/953
Abstract
Astrophys.J.690:953-973,2009 We give an overview of our recent integral-field-unit spectroscopy of
luminous extended emission-line regions (EELRs) around low-redshift quasars,
including new observations of 5 fields. Previous work has shown that the most
luminous EELRs are found almost exclusively around steep-spectrum radio-loud
quasars, with apparently disordered global velocity fields, and little, if any,
morphological correlation with either the host-galaxy or the radio structure.
Our new observations confirm and expand these results. The EELRs often show
some clouds with velocities exceeding 500 km/s, ranging up to 1100 km/s, but
the velocity dispersions, with few exceptions, are in the 30-100 km/s range.
Emission-line ratios show that the EELRs are clearly photoionized by the
quasars. Masses of the EELRs range up to >10^10 Msun. Essentially all of the
EELRs show relatively low metallicities, and they are associated with quasars
that, in contrast to most, show similarly low metallicities in their broad-line
regions. The two objects in our sample that do not have classical double-lobed
radio morphologies (3C48, with a compact-steep-spectrum source; Mrk1014,
radio-quiet, but with a weak compact-steep-spectrum source) are the only ones
that appear to have recent star formation. While some of the less-luminous
EELRs may have other origins, the most likely explanation for the ones in our
sample is that they are examples of gas swept out of the host galaxy by a
large-solid-angle blast wave accompanying the production of the radio jets. The
triggering of the quasar activity is almost certainly the result of the merger
of a gas-rich galaxy with a massive, gas-poor galaxy hosting the supermassive
black hole.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Extended Emission-Line Regions: Remnants of Quasar Superwinds?
- Creators
- Hai Fu - California Institute of TechnologyAlan Stockton - University of Hawaii
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- The Astrophysical journal, Vol.690(1), pp.953-973
- DOI
- 10.1088/0004-637X/690/1/953
- ISSN
- 0004-637X
- eISSN
- 1538-4357
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 09/05/2008
- Academic Unit
- Physics and Astronomy
- Record Identifier
- 9984199679802771
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