Black hole outflows

Abstract

I show that Eddington accretion episodes in AGN are likely to produce winds with velocities $v \sim 0.1c$ and ionization parameters up to $\xi \sim 10^4$ (cgs), implying the presence of resonance lines of helium-- and hydrogenlike iron. These properties are direct consequences of momentum and mass conservation respectively, and agree with recent X-ray observations of fast outflows from AGN. Because the wind is significantly subluminal, it can persist long after the AGN is observed to have become sub--Eddington. The wind creates a strong cooling shock as it interacts with the interstellar medium of the host galaxy, and this cooling region may be observable in an inverse Compton continuum and lower--excitation emission lines associated with lower velocities. The shell of matter swept up by the (`momentum--driven') shocked wind must propagate beyond the black hole's sphere of influence on a timescale $\la 3\times 10^5$ yr. Outside this radius the shell stalls unless the black hole mass has reached the value $M_{\sigma}$ implied by the $M - \sigma$ relation. If the wind shock did not cool, as suggested here, the resulting (`energy--driven') outflow would imply a far smaller SMBH mass than actually observed. In galaxies with large bulges the black hole may grow somewhat beyond this value, suggesting that the observed $M -\sigma$ relation may curve upwards at large $M$. Minor accretion events with small gas fractions can produce galaxy--wide outflows with velocities significantly exceeding $\sigma$, including fossil outflows in galaxies where there is little current AGN activity. Some rare cases may reveal the energy--driven outflows which sweep gas out of the galaxy and establish the black hole--bulge mass relation. However these require the quasar to be at the Eddington luminosity.