2008/07/22 by Kirk T. Korista, Kirk Korista, Manuel Bautista +5 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/592140
21 pages, 3 figures (accepted for publication in the ApJ)
arxiv created 2008/07/22 · openalex publication_date 2008/11/07 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2020/11/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
We analyze the physical conditions of the outflow seen in QSO 2359-1241 (NVSS J235953–124148), based on high-resolution spectroscopic VLT observations. This object was previously studied using Keck HIRES data. The main improvement over the HIRES results is our ability to accurately determine the number density of the outflow. For the major absorption component, the populations from five different Fe II excited levels yield a gas density n H = 10 4.4 cm −3 with less than 20% scatter. We find that the Fe II absorption arises from a region with roughly constant conditions and temperature greater than 9000 K, before the ionization front where temperature and electron density drop. Further, we model the observed spectra and investigate the effects of varying gas metallicities and the spectral energy distribution of the incident ionizing radiation field. The accurately measured column densities allow us to determine the ionization parameter (log U H ≈ − 2.4) and total column density of the outflow [log N H (cm −2 ) ≈ 20.6]. Combined with the number density finding, these are stepping stones toward determining the mass flux and kinetic luminosity of the outflow, and therefore its importance to AGN feedback processes.