2004/09/16 by J. E. Everett, John E. Everett, David R. Ballantyne +1 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/425980
published as Astrophys.J. 615 (2004) L13-L16 · 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted to ApJL
arxiv created 2004/09/16 · openalex publication_date 2004/09/29 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Motivated by recent observations of high-velocity, highly ionized winds in several QSOs, models of purely continuum-driven winds launched from ~200 GM BH / c 2 are presented. Launching conditions are investigated, as well as the observational signatures for a variety of initial conditions and illuminating continua. While we verify that continuum-driven highly ionized outflows reach the observed velocities for L / L Edd ≥ 1 independent of the incident spectral shape, such winds are too highly ionized to exhibit the observed absorption features when launched with an active galactic nucleus continuum (in fact, such winds are so ionized that they are driven primarily by electron scattering). If the wind is instead illuminated with a blackbody continuum originating from an optically thick shield, the gas is too weakly ionized and does not produce high-energy absorption features. If high-velocity high-ionization winds are truly launched from very near the black hole, such winds must be launched under other conditions or via other processes; we summarize some possibilities.