Discovery of spectacular quasar-driven superbubbles in red quasars

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of large, high-velocity superbubbles around three red quasars, providing clear evidence of galaxy-wide quasar-driven outflows and the breakout phase of quasar winds.

Contribution

It presents the first observation of spectacular quasar-driven superbubbles with dual-bubble morphology and high velocities, confirming models of galaxy-scale quasar outflows.

Findings

Unprecedented pairs of superbubbles extending ~20 kpc.

Line-of-sight velocity differences up to ~1200 km/s.

Evidence for quasar wind breakout phase.

Abstract

Quasar-driven outflows on galactic scales are a routinely invoked ingredient for galaxy formation models. We report the discovery of ionized gas nebulae as traced by [O III] $\lambda$5007 AA emission surrounding three luminous red quasars at $z \sim 0.4$ from Gemini Integral Field Unit (IFU) observations. All these nebulae feature unprecedented pairs of "superbubbles" extending $\sim$20 kpc in diameter, and the line-of-sight velocity difference between the red- and blue-shifted bubbles reaches up to $\sim$1200 km s$^{-1}$. Their spectacular dual-bubble morphology (in analogy to the Galactic "Fermi bubbles") and their kinematics provide unambiguous evidence for galaxy-wide quasar-driven outflows, in parallel with the quasi-spherical outflows similar in size from luminous Type-1 and -2 quasars at concordant redshift. These bubble pairs manifest themselves as a signpost of the short-lived superbubble ``break-out'' phase, when the quasar wind drives the bubbles to escape the confinement from the dense environment and plunge into the galactic halo with a high-velocity expansion.