Faint CO Line Wings in Four Star-Forming (Ultra)luminous Infrared Galaxies

TL;DR

This study searched for molecular outflow signatures in four star-formation-dominated (U)LIRGs using IRAM data, finding no significant line wings except in one candidate, and suggesting high outflow rates are linked to AGN activity.

Contribution

The paper provides high-sensitivity interferometric observations that challenge previous claims of broad CO line wings in these galaxies, refining understanding of molecular outflows in star-forming systems.

Findings

No significant CO line wings detected in three galaxies.

One galaxy, IRAS05083, identified as a potential outflow source.

Results support high outflow rates being associated with AGN presence.

Abstract

We report the results of a search for large velocity width, low-intensity line wings - a commonly used signature of molecular outflows - in four low redshift (ultra)luminous infrared galaxies (U/LIRGs) that appear to be dominated by star formation. The targets were drawn from a sample of fourteen such galaxies presented in Chung et al. (2011), who showed the stacked CO spectrum of the sample to exhibit 1000 km/s-wide line wings. We obtained sensitive, wide bandwidth imaging of our targets using the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer. We detect each target at very high significance but do not find the claimed line wings in these four targets. Instead, we constrain the flux in the line wings to be only a few percent. Casting our results as mass outflow rates following Cicone et al. (2014) we show them to be consistent with a picture in which very high mass loading factors preferentially occur in systems with high AGN contributions to their bolometric luminosity. We identify one of our targets, IRAS05083 (VII Zw 31), as a candidate molecular outflow.