English

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

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2025-08-21 v1

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 (logNH>\rm \log N_{H} > 21.6  [cm2]\rm\ [cm^{-2}]) and are able to place distance estimates for the EHVO (5R285\lesssim R\lesssim28 pc) and the lower-velocity outflow (7R5407\lesssim R\lesssim540 pc). We estimate a mass outflow rate for the EHVO to be M˙out50290 M yr1\dot M_{out}\sim50-290\rm \ M_\odot\ yr^{-1} and a kinetic luminosity of log LKE46.547.2 [erg s1\log\ L_{KE}\sim46.5-47.2\ \rm [erg\ s^{-1}] in both epochs. The lower-velocity component has a mass outflow rate M˙out10790 M yr1\dot M_{out}\sim10-790\rm \ M_\odot\ yr^{-1} and a kinetic luminosity of log LKE45.347.2 [erg s1]\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.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.14221,
  title  = {Massive Extremely High-Velocity Outflow in the Quasar J164653.72+243942.2},
  author = {Paola Rodríguez Hidalgo and Hyunseop Choi and Patrick B. Hall and Karen M. Leighly and Liliana Flores and Mikel M. Charles and Cora DeFrancesco and Julie Hlavacek-Larrondo and Laurence Perreault-Levasseur Laurence Perreault-Levasseur},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.14221},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

29 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal