MAGNUM survey: Compact jets causing large turmoil in galaxies -- Enhanced line widths perpendicular to radio jets as tracers of jet-ISM interaction

TL;DR

This study reveals that low-power radio jets in nearby Seyfert galaxies can significantly disturb the galaxy's interstellar medium, causing broad, shock-excited emission-line velocities perpendicular to the jets, indicating impactful jet-ISM interactions.

Contribution

It provides observational evidence that low-power (<10^{44} erg/s) jets can perturb the host galaxy's gas, supporting simulations that suggest their dominant role in galaxy feedback.

Findings

Detected extended, shock-excited emission-line velocity spreads perpendicular to jets.

Observed symmetric, broad line profiles not associated with single coherent velocities.

Confirmed low-power jets can significantly influence host galaxy gas dynamics.

Abstract

Outflows accelerated by AGN are commonly observed in the form of coherent, mildly collimated high-velocity gas directed along the AGN ionisation cones and kinetically powerful (>$10^{44-45}$ erg/s) jets. Recent works found that outflows can also be accelerated by low-power (<$10^{44}$ erg/s) jets, and the most recent cosmological simulations indicate that these are the dominant source of feedback on sub-kpc scales. We study the relation between radio jets and the distribution and kinematics of the ionised gas in IC 5063, NGC 5643, NGC 1068, and NGC 1386 as part of our MAGNUM survey of nearby Seyfert galaxies. All these objects host a small-scale (<1 kpc) low-power (<$10^{44}$ erg/s) radio jet that has small inclinations (<45\deg) with respect to the galaxy disc. We employed seeing-limited optical integral field spectroscopic observations from MUSE at VLT to obtain flux, kinematic, and excitation maps of the extended ionised gas, that we compared with archival radio images and Chandra X-ray observations. We detect a strong (up to >800-1000 km/s), extended (>1 kpc) and shock-excited emission-line velocity spread perpendicular to the AGN ionisation cones and jets in all four targets. These broad and symmetric line profiles are not associated with a single coherent velocity of the gas, differently from the 'classical' asymmetric-line outflow observed along the ionisation cones and jets. We interpret the observed phenomenon as due to the action of the jets perturbing the gas in the galaxy disc. These intense and extended velocity spreads perpendicular to AGN jets and cones are indeed currently only observed in galaxies hosting a low-power jet whose inclination is sufficiently low with respect to the galaxy disc to impact on and strongly affect its material. In line with cosmological simulations, our results demonstrate that low-power jets are indeed capable of affecting the host galaxy.