A Study of Outflows in Luminous Quasars at Redshift $\sim0.4-0.8$

TL;DR

This study analyzes outflows in the narrow-line regions of about 900 luminous quasars at redshifts 0.4-0.8, revealing that outflows are primarily driven by radiation pressure from the central black hole, consistent with local AGN behavior.

Contribution

First systematic analysis of NLR outflows in luminous quasars at intermediate redshifts, linking outflow properties to Eddington ratio and confirming similar mechanisms as in local AGNs.

Findings

Prevalence of [OIII] line asymmetry and blueshift in high Eddington ratio quasars.

Outflows correlated with high L/L_Edd, independent of radio jet influence.

Outflow origin likely due to radiation pressure from the central black hole.

Abstract

We perform a systematic study of outflow in the narrow-line region (NLR) of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at $z\sim0.4-0.8$ basing upon a large sample of $\sim900$ quasars at $z\sim 0.4-0.8$. The sample is extracted from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey by mainly requiring 1) the g-band magnitude is brighter than 19 magnitude; and 2) the [OIII]$\lambda5007$ emission line has a signal-to-noise ration larger than 30. Profiles of multiple emission lines are modeled by a sum of several Gaussian functions. The spectral analysis allows us to identify 1) a prevalence of both [OIII]$\lambda5007$ line blue asymmetry and bulk velocity blueshift of both [NeIII]$\lambda3869$ and [NeV]$\lambda3426$ lines, when the [\ion{O}{2}]$\lambda3727$ line is used as a reference. The velocity offset of [\ion{O}{3}]$\lambda5007$ line is, however, distributed around zero value, except for a few outliers. 2) not only the significant [OIII]$\lambda5007$ line asymmetry, but also the large bulk velocity offsets of [NeIII]$\lambda3869$ and [NeV]$\lambda3426$ emission lines tend to occur in the objects with high $L/L_{\mathrm{Edd}}$, which is considerably consistent with the conclusions based on local AGNs. With three $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$ estimation methods, the significance level of the trend is found to be better than $2.9\sigma$, $3.2\sigma$ and $1.8\sigma$ for [OIII], [NeIII] and [NeV], respectively. \rm After excluding the role of radio jets, the revealed dependence of NLR gas outflow on $L/L_{\mathrm{Edd}}$ allows us to argue that the pressure caused by the wind/radiation launched/emitted from central supermassive black hole is the most likely origin of the outflow in these distant quasars, which implies that the outflow in luminous AGNs up to $z\sim1$ have the same origin.