The Suzaku view of highly ionized outflows in AGN - II. Location, energetics and scalings with bolometric luminosity
Date Issued
2015
Author(s)
Gofford, J.
•
Reeves, J. N.
•
McLaughlin, D. E.
•
•
Turner, T. J.
•
•
Description
MC acknowledges support from contracts ASI/INAF no. I/037/12/0 and PRIN INAF 2012. FT acknowledges support for this work by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under grant no. NNX12AH40G issued through the Astrophysics Data Analysis Program, part of the ROSES 2010.
Abstract
Ongoing studies with XMM-Newton have shown that powerful accretion disc winds, as revealed through highly ionized Fe K-shell absorption at E ≥ 6.7 keV, are present in a significant fraction of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the local Universe (Tombesi et al. 2010a). In Gofford et al., we analysed a sample of 51 Suzaku-observed AGNs and independently detected Fe K absorption in ∼40 per cent of the sample, and we measured the properties of the absorbing gas. In this work, we build upon these results to consider the properties of the associated wind. On average, the fast winds (vw > 0.01c) are located ∼ 1015-18 cm (typically ∼102-4 rs) from their black hole, their mass outflow rates are of the order of < dot{M}_w > ∼ 0.01-1 M☉ yr-1 or {∼ }(0.01-1)dot{M}_Edd and kinetic power is constrained to w> ∼ 1043-45 erg s-1, equivalent to ∼(0.1-10 per cent)LEdd. We find a fundamental correlation between the source bolometric luminosity and the wind velocity, with v_w ∝ L_bol^{α } and α =0.4^{+0.3}_{-0.2} (90 per cent confidence), which indicates that more luminous AGN tend to harbour faster Fe K winds. The mass outflow rate dot{M}_w, kinetic power Lw and momentum flux dot{p}_w of the winds are also consequently correlated with Lbol, such that more massive and more energetic winds are present in more luminous AGN. We investigate these properties in the framework of a continuum-driven wind, showing that the observed relationships are broadly consistent with a wind being accelerated by continuum-scattering. We find that, globally, a significant fraction (∼85 per cent) of the sample can plausibly exceed the Lw/Lbol ∼ 0.5 per cent threshold thought necessary for feedback, while 45 per cent may also exceed the less conservative ∼5 per cent of Lbol threshold as well. This suggests that the winds may be energetically significant for AGN-host-galaxy feedback processes.
Volume
451
Issue
4
Start page
4169
Issn Identifier
0035-8711
Ads BibCode
2015MNRAS.451.4169G
Rights
open.access
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