DIRECT EVIDENCE FOR TERMINATION OF OBSCURED STAR FORMATION BY RADIATIVELY DRIVEN OUTFLOWS IN REDDENED QSOs
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH (United Kingdom)
- Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics, An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam (Germany)
- NRAO, 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903 (United States)
- School of Sciences, European University Cyprus, Diogenes Street, Engomi, Nicosia (Cyprus)
- Observatorio Astronomico de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciencias, Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-018 Lisbon (Portugal)
- Department of Physics, McGill University, Ernest Rutherford Building, 3600 Rue University, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2T8 (Canada)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 (Canada)
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, MS220-6, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
- Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
- UCLA, Physics and Astronomy Building, 430 Portola Plaza, Box 951547, Los Angeles, CA 90095 (United States)
We present optical to far-infrared photometry of 31 reddened QSOs that show evidence for radiatively driven outflows originating from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in their rest-frame UV spectra. We use these data to study the relationships between the AGN-driven outflows, and the AGN and starburst infrared luminosities. We find that FeLoBAL QSOs are invariably IR-luminous, with IR luminosities exceeding 10{sup 12} L{sub Sun} in all cases. The AGN supplies 76% of the total IR emission, on average, but with a range from 20% to 100%. We find no evidence that the absolute luminosity of obscured star formation is affected by the AGN-driven outflows. Conversely, we find an anticorrelation between the strength of AGN-driven outflows, as measured from the range of outflow velocities over which absorption exceeds a minimal threshold, and the contribution from star formation to the total IR luminosity, with a much higher chance of seeing a starburst contribution in excess of 25% in systems with weak outflows than in systems with strong outflows. Moreover, we find no convincing evidence that this effect is driven by the IR luminosity of the AGN. We conclude that radiatively driven outflows from AGNs can have a dramatic, negative impact on luminous star formation in their host galaxies. We find that such outflows act to curtail star formation such that star formation contributes less than {approx}25% of the total IR luminosity. We also propose that the degree to which termination of star formation takes place is not deducible from the IR luminosity of the AGN.
- OSTI ID:
- 22011697
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 745, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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