Massive Extremely High-Velocity Outflow in the Quasar J164653.72+243942.2

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery and detailed analysis of an extremely high-velocity quasar outflow with significant mass and energy, highlighting its importance in galaxy feedback processes.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed measurements of an EHVO in J164653.72+243942.2, including velocity, column density, distance, and energetics, demonstrating the outflow's role in quasar feedback.

Findings

Outflow velocities exceed 50,000 km/s.

Mass outflow rates up to 290 solar masses per year.

Kinetic luminosity reaching 10^47 erg/s.

Abstract

We present the analysis of one of the most extreme quasar outflows found to date in our survey of extremely high velocity outflows (EHVO). J164653.72+243942.2 (z ~ 3.04) shows variable CIV1548,1551 absorption at speeds larger than 0.1c, accompanied by SiIV, NV and Lya, and disappearing absorption at lower speeds. We perform absorption measurements using the Apparent Optical Depth method and SimBAL. We find the absorption to be very broad ({\Delta}v ~35,100 km/s in the first epoch and ~13,000 km/s in the second one) and fast (vmax ~ -50,200 km/s and -49,000 km/s, respectively). We measure large column densities ($\rm \log N_{H} >$ 21.6 $\rm\ [cm^{-2}]$) and are able to place distance estimates for the EHVO ($5\lesssim R\lesssim28$ pc) and the lower-velocity outflow ($7\lesssim R\lesssim540$ pc). We estimate a mass outflow rate for the EHVO to be $\dot M_{out}\sim50-290\rm \ M_\odot\ yr^{-1}$ and a kinetic luminosity of $\log\ L_{KE}\sim46.5-47.2\ \rm [erg\ s^{-1}$] in both epochs. The lower-velocity component has a mass outflow rate $\dot M_{out}\sim10-790\rm \ M_\odot\ yr^{-1}$ and a kinetic luminosity of $\log\ L_{KE}\sim45.3-47.2\ \rm [erg\ s^{-1]}$. We find that J164653.72+243942.2 is not an outlier among EHVO quasars in regard to its physical properties. While its column density is lower than typical BAL values, its higher outflow velocities drive most of the mass outflow rate and kinetic luminosity. These results emphasize the crucial role of EHVOs in powering quasar feedback, and failing to account for these outflows likely leads to underestimating the feedback impact on galaxies.