English

Compact and Quiescent Circumgalactic Medium and Ly$\alpha$ Halos around Extremely Red Quasars (ERQs)

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2023-03-24 v1

Abstract

Red quasars may represent a young stage of galaxy evolution that provide important feedback to their host galaxies. We are studying a population of extremely red quasars (ERQs) with exceptionally fast and powerful outflows, at median redshift zz = 2.6. We present Keck/KCWI integral field spectra of 11 ERQs, which have a median color iW3i-W3 = 5.9~mag, median Lbol\left\langle L_{\text{bol}} \right\rangle \approx 5 ×\times 104710^{47} erg s1^{-1}, Lyα\alpha halo luminosity Lhalo\left\langle L_{\text{halo}} \right\rangle == 5 ×\times 104310^{43} erg s1^{-1}, and maximum linear size >128>128 kpc. The ERQ halos are generally similar to those of blue quasars, following known trends with LbolL_{\text{bol}} in halo properties. ERQs have halo symmetries similar to Type-I blue quasars, suggesting Type-I spatial orientations. ERQ Lhalo\left\langle L_{\text{halo}} \right\rangle is \sim2 dex below blue quasars, which is marginal due to scatter, but consistent with obscuration lowering photon escape fractions. ERQ halos tend to have more compact and circularly symmetric inner regions than blue quasars, with median exponential scale lengths of \sim9 kpc, compared to \sim16 kpc for blue quasars. When we include the central regions not available in blue quasar studies (due to PSF problems), the true median ERQ halo scale length is just \sim6 kpc. ERQ halos are also kinematically quiet, with median velocity dispersion 293 km s1^{-1}, consistent with expected virial speeds. Overall we find no evidence for feedback on circumgalactic scales, and the current episode of quasar activity, perhaps due to long outflow travel times, has not been around long enough to affect the circumgalactic medium. We confirm the narrow Lyα\alpha emission spikes found in ERQ aperture spectra are halo features, and are useful for systemic redshifts and measuring outflow speeds in other features.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2303.12835,
  title  = {Compact and Quiescent Circumgalactic Medium and Ly$\alpha$ Halos around Extremely Red Quasars (ERQs)},
  author = {Jarred Gillette and Marie Wingyee Lau and Fred Hamann and Serena Perrotta and David S. N. Rupke and Dominika Wylezalek and Nadia L. Zakamska and Andrey Vayner},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.12835},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

19 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society