Multiphase Powerful Outflows Detected in High-z Quasars

TL;DR

This study detects and analyzes ultrafast outflows in high-redshift quasars, revealing their significant feedback potential and possible magnetic driving mechanisms, thereby advancing understanding of AGN feedback in galaxy evolution.

Contribution

It reports six new high-redshift UFO detections, nearly doubling known cases, and explores their properties, feedback effects, and relationship with UV absorption lines, linking micro- and macro-scale AGN feedback.

Findings

High detection rate of UFOs in high-z quasars (> 99% confidence).

Significant coexistence of UV NALs and UFOs in over 83% of studied quasars.

UFOs exhibit large kinematic luminosities, suggesting efficient feedback and magnetic driving.

Abstract

We present results from a comprehensive study of ultrafast outflows (UFOs) detected in a sample of fourteen quasars, twelve of which are gravitationally lensed, in a redshift range of 1.41-3.91, near the peak of the AGN and star formation activity. New XMM-Newton observations are presented for six of them which were selected to be lensed and contain a narrow absorption line (NAL) in their UV spectra. Another lensed quasar was added to the sample, albeit already studied, because it was not searched for UFOs. The remaining seven quasars of our sample are known to contain UFOs. The main goals of our study are to infer the outflow properties of high-z quasars, constrain their outflow induced feedback, study the relationship between the outflow properties and the properties of the ionizing source, and compare these results to those of nearby AGN. Our study adds six new detections ( > 99% confidence) of UFOs at z > 1.4, almost doubling the current number of cases. Based on our survey of six quasars selected to contain a NAL and observed with XMM-Newton, the coexistence of intrinsic UV NALs and UFOs is found to be significant in > 83% of these quasars suggesting a link between multiphase AGN feedback properties of the meso- and micro-scale. The kinematic luminosities of the UFOs of our high-z sample are large compared to their bolometric luminosities (median of L_K/L_Bol ~ 50%). This suggests they provide efficient feedback to influence the evolution of their host galaxies and that magnetic driving may be a significant contributor to their acceleration.