Unraveling the complex structure of AGN-driven outflows: V. Integral-field spectroscopy of 40 moderate-luminosity Type-2 AGNs

TL;DR

This study uses integral-field spectroscopy of 40 moderate-luminosity Type-2 AGNs to analyze the structure and impact of AGN-driven outflows, revealing that while outflows reach large sizes, their energy transfer is inefficient and they do not immediately suppress star formation.

Contribution

It extends the kinematic outflow size-luminosity relation over a wider luminosity range and highlights the delayed feedback effect on star formation in host galaxies.

Findings

Outflow size-luminosity relation has a shallow slope.

Kinetic energy transfer in outflows is less efficient than ionizing photon reach.

Strong outflows correlate with higher star formation rates and HI gas fractions.

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate on whether feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can effectively regulate the star formation activities in their host galaxies. To investigate the feedback effect of AGN-driven outflows, we perform integral-field spectroscopic observations of 40 moderate-luminosity (10$^{41.5}$ $<$ L$_{\rm [OIII];cor}$ $<$ 10$^{43.1}$ erg s$^{-1}$) Type-2 AGNs at z $<$ 0.1, which present strong outflow signatures in the integrated [OIII] kinematics. Based on the radial profile of the normalized [OIII] velocity dispersion by stellar velocity dispersion, we measure the kinematic outflow size and extend the kinematic outflow size-luminosity relation reported in Kang & Woo (2018) into a wider luminosity range (over four orders of magnitude in [OIII] luminosity). The shallow slope of the kinematic outflow size-luminosity relation indicates that while ionizing photons can reach out further, kinetic energy transfer is much less efficient due to various effects, demonstrating the importance of kinematical analysis in quantifying the outflow size and energetics. By comparing the outflow kinematics with the host galaxy properties, we find that AGNs with strong outflows have higher star formation rate and higher HI gas fraction than those AGNs with weak outflows. These results suggest that the current feedback from AGN-driven outflows do not instantaneously suppress or quench the star formation in the host galaxies while its effect is delayed.