Connecting X-ray nuclear winds with galaxy-scale ionised outflows in two z  ∼  1.5 lensed quasars

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Firenze, Via G. Sansone 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Firenze, Italy
e-mail: giulia.tozzi@unifi.it
² INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, 50127 Firenze, Italy
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC 29424, USA
⁴ Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Karl-Schwarzschild Str. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany
⁵ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università degli Studi di Bologna, Via P. Gobetti 93/2, 40129 Bologna, Italy
⁶ INAF – Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio, Via P. Gobetti 93/3, 40129 Bologna, Italy
⁷ European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, 85748 Garching, Germany
⁸ Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
⁹ Centro de Astrobiología, (CAB, CSIC-INTA), Departamento de Astrofísica, Cra. de Ajalvir Km. 4, 28850 Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain
¹⁰ Instituto de Astrofísica, Facultad de Física, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Casilla 306, Santiago 22, Chile

Received: 21 December 2020
Accepted: 13 February 2021

Abstract

Aims. Outflows driven by active galactic nuclei (AGN) are expected to have a significant impact on host galaxy evolution, but the matter of how they are accelerated and propagated on galaxy-wide scales is still under debate. This work addresses these questions by studying the link between X-ray, nuclear ultra-fast outflows (UFOs), and extended ionised outflows, for the first time, in two quasars close to the peak of AGN activity (z ∼ 2), where AGN feedback is expected to be more effective.

Methods. Our selected targets, HS 0810+2554 and SDSS J1353+1138, are two multiple-lensed quasars at z ∼ 1.5 with UFO detection that have been observed with the near-IR integral field spectrometer SINFONI at the VLT. We performed a kinematical analysis of the [O III]λ5007 optical emission line to trace the presence of ionised outflows.

Results. We detected spatially resolved ionised outflows in both galaxies, extended more than 8 kpc and moving up to v > 2000 km s⁻¹. We derived mass outflow rates of ∼12 M_⊙ yr⁻¹ and ∼2 M_⊙ yr⁻¹ for HS 0810+2554 and SDSS J1353+1138.

Conclusions. Compared with the co-hosted UFO energetics, the ionised outflow energetics in HS 0810+2554 is broadly consistent with a momentum-driven regime of wind propagation, whereas in SDSS J1353+1138, it differs by about two orders of magnitude from theoretical predictions, requiring either a massive molecular outflow or a high variability of the AGN activity to account for such a discrepancy. By additionally considering our results together with those from the small sample of well-studied objects (all local but one) having both UFO and extended (ionised, atomic, or molecular) outflow detections, we found that in 10 out of 12 galaxies, the large-scale outflow energetics is consistent with the theoretical predictions of either a momentum- or an energy-driven scenario of wind propagation. This suggests that such models explain the acceleration mechanism of AGN-driven winds on large scales relatively well.