Detection of Quasar Feedback from the Thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect in Planck

TL;DR

This study detects and analyzes the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect around quasars using Planck data, revealing significant feedback energy that impacts galaxy evolution and the intergalactic medium.

Contribution

It provides the first large-scale measurement of quasar feedback energy via the tSZ effect, isolating feedback from halo gas and linking it to black hole properties.

Findings

Detected a >5 sigma tSZ signal around quasars

Feedback energy constitutes about 5% of black hole mass

tSZ signal scales with black hole mass and luminosity

Abstract

Poorly understood feedback processes associated with highly-luminous black hole accretion in quasars may dramatically affect the properties of their host galaxies. We search for the effect of quasar feedback on surrounding gas using Planck maps of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (tSZ). By stacking tSZ Compton-y maps centered on the locations of 26,686 spectroscopic quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we detect a strong but unresolved tSZ Compton-y signal at >5 sigma significance that likely originates from a combination of virialized halo atmosphere gas and quasar feedback effects. We show that the feedback contribution to our detected quasar tSZ signal is likely to dominate over virialized halo gas by isolating the feedback tSZ component for high- and low-redshift quasars. We find that this quasar tSZ signal also scales with black hole mass and bolometric luminosity, all consistent with general expectations of quasar feedback. We estimate the mean angularly-integrated Compton-y of quasars at z~1.5 to be 3.5x10^-6 Mpc^2, corresponding to mean total thermal energies in feedback and virialized halo gas of 1.1(+/- 0.2) x 10^62 erg, and discuss the implications for quasar feedback. If confirmed, the large total thermal feedback energetics we estimate of 5% (+/-1% statistical uncertainty) of the black hole mass will have important implications for the effects of quasar feedback on the host galaxy, as well as the surrounding intergalactic medium.