Discovery of an X-ray Quasar Wind Driving the Cold Gas Outflow in the Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxy IRAS F05189-2524

TL;DR

This study reports the discovery of an ultra-fast X-ray driven wind in the galaxy IRAS F05189-2524, linking nuclear activity to large-scale gas outflows and exploring their energetic coupling.

Contribution

First detection of an ultra-fast outflow in IRAS F05189-2524, providing insights into the energy transfer from nuclear winds to galaxy-scale outflows.

Findings

Detected a blueshifted Fe K absorption feature indicating a wind at 0.11c.

Estimated the outflow's mass rate and kinetic power, accounting for a significant fraction of AGN luminosity.

Compared nuclear and galactic outflows, suggesting variable efficiency in energy coupling.

Abstract

We present new XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations of the galaxy merger IRAS F05189-2524 which is classified as an ultra-luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) and optical Seyfert 2 at $z$ = 0.0426. We test a variety of spectral models which yields a best-fit consisting of an absorbed power law with emission and absorption features in the Fe K band. Remarkably, we find evidence for a blueshifted Fe K absorption feature at $E$ = 7.8 keV (rest-frame) which implies an ultra-fast outflow (UFO) with $v_{\mathrm{out}} = 0.11\ \pm\ 0.01c$. We calculate that the UFO in IRAS F05189-2524 has a mass outflow rate of $\dot{M}_{\mathrm{out}}\ \gtrsim 1.0\ M_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$, a kinetic power of $\dot{E}_{\mathrm{K}} \gtrsim$ 8% $L_{\mathrm{AGN}}$, and a momentum rate (or force) of $\dot{P}_{\mathrm{out}}\ \gtrsim 1.4\ L_{\mathrm{AGN}}/c$. Comparing the energetics of the UFO to the observed multi-phase outflows at kiloparsec scales yields an efficiency factor of $f\sim0.05$ for an energy-driven outflow. Given the uncertainties, however, we cannot exclude the possibility of a momentum-driven outflow. Comparing IRAS F05189-2524 with nine other objects with observed UFOs and large-scale galactic outflows suggests that there is a range of efficiency factors for the coupling of the energetics of the nuclear and galaxy-scale outflows that likely depend on specific physical conditions in each object.