Warm Absorber Energetics in Broad Line Radio Galaxies

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the properties of warm absorbers in Broad Line Radio Galaxies, revealing their characteristics, outflow dynamics, and relation to jet power, with implications for AGN feedback mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of warm absorber properties in BLRGs using high-quality X-ray data, comparing them to radio-quiet AGNs and exploring their role in AGN feedback.

Findings

Warm absorbers are present in 3C 390.3 and 3C 382 but absent in 3C 120.

Outflowing gas in 3C 390.3 has velocities around 100 km/s and is likely located in the Narrow Line Regions.

Mass outflow rates increase with radio power, but outflow kinetic energy remains below 1% of jet power.

Abstract

We review the soft X-ray properties of 3C 390.3, 3C 120, 3C 382 and 3C 445, the only Broad Line Radio Galaxies (BLRG) for which good quality gratings data are currently available. The XMM-Newton/RGS data of 3C 390.3 and 3C 120 were re-analyzed searching for warm absorbers, already discovered in 3C 382 and 3C 445. We confirm the absence of ionized absorption features in 3C 120, but find signatures of outflowing gas (v_out \sim 10^2 km s^-1) in 3C 390.3. Its warm absorber (Log\xi \sim 2 erg cm s^-1, N_H\sim 10^20 cm^-2), similar to that observed in 3C 382, is probably placed in the Narrow Line Regions. Its gas content is slower and less dense than the accretion disk wind discovered in 3C 445. Independently from the location of the warm gas, the outflowing masses (\dotM_out) of BLRGs are significantly (but improbably) predominant with respect to the accretion masses (\dotM_acc), suggesting a clumpy configuration of the warm absorber. However, even assuming overestimated values of \dotM_out, the kinetic luminosity of the outflow (\dotE_out) is well below 1% of the kinetic power of the jet (P_jet). Thus, the jet remains the major driver of the radio-loud AGN feedback at least on pc scale and beyond. The warm absorber parameters (N_H, \xi) of BLRGs span similar range of values of type 1 radio-quiet AGNs. However, when the mass outflow rate of BLRGs and Seyfert 1s is plotted as a function of the radio-loudness, R=Log [\nu L_\nu(5GHz)/L_(2-10keV)], the mass outflow rate seems to increase with radio power.