2018/01/26 by J. N. Reeves, James Reeves, Valentina Braito +9
Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Accretion disc #Active galactic nucleus #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysical jet #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Component (thermodynamics) #Galaxy #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Geology #Physics #astro-ph.GA #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aaaae1
5 pages, accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters
arxiv created 2018/01/26 · openalex publication_date 2018/02/07 · arxiv updated 2018/02/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract Past X-ray observations of the nearby luminous quasar PDS 456 (at z = 0.184) have revealed a wide angle accretion disk wind, with an outflow velocity of ∼−0.25 c . Here, we unveil a new, relativistic component of the wind through hard X-ray observations with NuSTAR and XMM-Newton , obtained in 2017 March when the quasar was in a low-flux state. This very fast wind component, with an outflow velocity of −0.46 ± 0.02 c , is detected in the iron K band, in addition to the −0.25 c wind zone. The relativistic component may arise from the innermost disk wind, launched from close to the black hole at a radius of ∼10 gravitational radii. The opacity of the fast wind also increases during a possible obscuration event lasting for 50 ks. We suggest that the very fast wind may only be apparent during the lowest X-ray flux states of PDS 456, becoming overly ionized as the luminosity increases. Overall, the total wind power may even approach the Eddington value.