A fast and long-lived outflow from the supermassive black hole in NGC 5548
- Creators
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Kaastra, J. S.
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Harrison, F. A.
Abstract
Supermassive black holes in the nuclei of active galaxies expel large amounts of matter through powerful winds of ionized gas. The archetypal active galaxy NGC 5548 has been studied for decades, and high-resolution x-ray and ultraviolet (UV) observations have previously shown a persistent ionized outflow. An observing campaign in 2013 with six space observatories shows the nucleus to be obscured by a long-lasting, clumpy stream of ionized gas not seen before. It blocks 90% of the soft x-ray emission and causes simultaneous deep, broad UV absorption troughs. The outflow velocities of this gas are up to five times faster than those in the persistent outflow, and, at a distance of only a few light days from the nucleus, it may likely originate from the accretion disk.
Additional Information
© 2014 American Association for the Advancement of Science. 24 March 2014; accepted 9 June 2014; Published online 19 June 2014. The data used in this research are stored in the public archives of the international space observatories involved: XMM-Newton, HST, Swift, NuSTAR, INTEGRAL, and Chandra. We acknowledge support by the International Space Science Institute in Bern; the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research; NASA HST program 13184 from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated, under NASA contract NAS5-26555; the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council; the French Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, CNRS/Project International de Coopération Scientific and CNRS/Programme National Hautes Énergies; Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Desarrollo Tecnológico (Chile); Israel's Ministry of Science, Technology, and Space, Israel Science Foundation (1163/10), and Israeli Centers of Research Excellence program (1937/12); the Swiss National Science Foundation; the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana grant INAF I/037/12/0-011/13 and INAF/Project for International Scientific Cooperation; NSF grant AST-1008882; and European Union Marie Curie contract FP-PEOPLE-2012-IEF-331095. We thank S. Paniagua for help with Fig. 4.Attached Files
Submitted - 1406.5007.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 47515
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20140728-091348328
- International Space Science Institute
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)
- HST 13184
- NASA
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
- Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
- Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Desarrollo Tecnológico
- 1163/10
- Israel Science Foundation
- 1937/12
- Israel Science Foundation
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
- I/037/12/0-011/13
- Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI)
- Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF)
- AST-1008882
- NSF
- FP-PEOPLE-2012-IEF-331095
- Marie Curie Fellowship
- Created
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2014-07-28Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- NuSTAR, Space Radiation Laboratory
- Other Numbering System Name
- Space Radiation Laboratory
- Other Numbering System Identifier
- 2014-45