Outflows and winds in AGNs: a case for Simbol-X

TL;DR

Simbol-X's enhanced sensitivity in the 5-30 keV range can significantly improve the detection and analysis of high-velocity outflows in AGNs, providing insights into their launching mechanisms and feedback effects.

Contribution

This paper demonstrates through simulations that Simbol-X can detect highly ionized, high-velocity outflows in AGNs at energies above 10 keV, surpassing current observatories.

Findings

Simbol-X can detect absorption lines at energies >10 keV.

Enhanced sensitivity allows probing of relativistic outflows.

Potential to measure velocity variations of absorbing gas.

Abstract

Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray observations are accumulating evidence for massive, high velocity outflows in Seyfert galaxies and quasars, most likely originating very close to the central supermassive black hole. These results are offering new potential to probe the launching regions of relativistic jets/outflows, and to quantify their feedback impact on the host galaxy and/or cluster of galaxies. The most important signature of these phenomena is the detection of blueshifted absorption lines of highly ionized iron at energies usually greater than ~7 keV. The lack of sensitivity of present day X-ray observatories at these energies gives rise to bias against the detection of more ``extreme'' outflows, with highest velocity and ionization, which would be blueshifted at energies >10 keV. Thus, simulations with Simbol-X were carried out to test its capability of detecting absorption lines/edges between 5-20 keV, in order to probe the dynamics (i.e. measurement of velocity variations) of the absorbing gas, as well as the highest (up to relativistic speeds) velocity and ionization components. We found that the unprecedented sensitivity of Simbol-X between 5-30 keV is a great opportunity to obtain important improvements in this research field.