English

QSOFEED: Investigating warm molecular, low- and high-ionization atomic gas in six type-2 quasars with GTC/EMIR

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2026-04-01 v1

Abstract

We present long-slit near-infrared spectroscopic observations of six nearby (z\sim0.1) radio-quiet type-2 quasars (QSO2s) from the Quasar Feedback (QSOFEED) sample. They have bolometric luminosities of 104546 erg s110^{45-46}~erg~s^{-1} and stellar masses of 1010.611.3 M 10^{10.6-11.3}~M_{\odot}. The observations were obtained with the instrument Espectr\'ografo Multiobjeto Infra-Rojo (EMIR) on the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias. The nuclear K-band spectra (central \sim1-3 kpc of the QSO2s) reveal signatures of high-velocity outflows in either the Paα\alpha or Brγ\gamma lines, depending on the redshift, and in the [Si VI] lines. The broadest kinematic components have full width at half maximum (FWHM) of \sim1200-2500 km s1s^{-1}. From the near-infrared hydrogen recombination lines we derived ionized outflow masses of MHion0.0820×106 MM_{Hion} \sim0.08-20\times 10^{6}~M_{\odot}, mass outflow rates of M˙Hion0.036 M yr1\dot{M}_{Hion}\sim0.03-6~M_{\odot}~yr^{-1}, and kinetic powers of E˙Hion1037.840.8 erg s1\dot{E}_{Hion}\sim 10^{37.8-40.8}~erg~s^{-1}. These ionized gas outflow masses and mass outflow rates have median values that are 5.9 and 5.8 times larger, respectively, than those derived from the [Si VI] line. Our study provides evidence, at least for these six QSO2s, that the near-infrared recombination lines and [Si VI] are tracing the same outflow (i.e., they have similar kinematics and radii), but they carry different amounts of mass. We detected warm molecular lines in the six QSO2s, from which we measured total (nuclear) gas masses from 1.1 (0.7) to 32 (13) × 103 M\times~10^3~M_{\odot}, similar to other QSO2s with warm H2H_2 measurements reported in the literature, but we did not find any molecular outflow associated with them. Comparing with other five QSO2s with H2H_2 measurements reported in the literature, we find that the four QSO2s with detected H2H_2 outflows have total (nuclear) H2H_2 masses 2.2 (2.7) times larger, on average.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.22906,
  title  = {QSOFEED: Investigating warm molecular, low- and high-ionization atomic gas in six type-2 quasars with GTC/EMIR},
  author = {P. H. Cezar and M. Coloma Puga and C. Ramos Almeida and J. A. Acosta-Pulido and G. Speranza and L. R. Holden and C. N. Tadhunter and M. V. Zanchettin and A. Audibert},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.22906},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

21 pages, including 18 figures, 15 tables and appendices. Accepted for publication in A&A