A New Concept of Transonic Galactic Outflows in a Cold Dark Matter Halo with a Central Super-Massive Black Hole

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new model of transonic galactic outflows influenced by dark matter halos and supermassive black holes, explaining observed hot gas distributions in galaxies like the Sombrero galaxy.

Contribution

It presents a novel theoretical framework for transonic outflows in galaxies, highlighting two distinct solutions driven by dark matter and black holes, and applies it to real galaxy observations.

Findings

Two types of transonic solutions identified, driven by dark matter and black hole.

Proposed a transonic outflow model for the Sombrero galaxy with a distant transonic point.

Outflows can be subsonic over large regions, mimicking hydrostatic equilibrium.

Abstract

We study fundamental properties of isothermal, steady and spherically symmetric galactic outflow in the gravitational potential of a cold dark matter halo and a central super-massive black hole. We find that there are two transonic solutions having different properties: each solution is mainly produced by the dark matter halo and the super-massive black hole, respectively. Furthermore, we apply our model to the Sombrero galaxy. In this galaxy, Chandra X-ray observatory detected the diffuse hot gas as the trace of galactic outflows while the star-formation rate is low and the observed gas density distribution presumably indicates the hydrostatic equilibrium. To solve this discrepancy, we propose a solution that this galaxy has a transonic outflow, however, the transonic point forms in a very distant region from the galactic center (?$\sim$ 127 kpc). In this slowly accelerated transonic outflow, the outflow velocity is less than the sound velocity for most of the galactic halo. Since the gas density distribution in this subsonic region is similar to the hydrostatic one, it is difficult to distinguish the wide subsonic region from hydrostatic state. Such galactic outflows are dfferent from the conventional supersonic outflows observed in star-forming galaxies.