Observational Evidence for Hot Wind Impact on Parsec Scales in Low-luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei

Abstract

Supermassive black holes in galaxies spend the majority of their lifetime in the low-luminosity regime, powered by hot accretion flow. Strong winds launched from the hot accretion flow have the potential to play an important role in active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback. Direct observational evidence for these hot winds with temperatures around 10 keV, has been obtained through the detection of highly ionized iron emission lines with Doppler shifts in two prototypical low-luminosity AGNs, namely M81* and NGC 7213. In this work, we further identify blueshifted H-like O/Ne emission lines in the soft X-ray spectra of these two sources. These lines are interpreted to be associated with additional outflowing components possessing velocity around several 103 km s−1 and lower temperature (∼0.2–0.4 keV). Blueshifted velocity and the X-ray intensity of these additional outflowing components are hard to explain by previously detected hot wind freely propagating to larger radii. Through detailed numerical simulations, we find the newly detected blueshifted emission lines would come from circumnuclear gas shock-heated by the hot wind instead. Hot wind can provide a larger ram pressure force on the clumpy circumnuclear gas than the gravitational force from the central black hole, effectively impeding the black hole accretion of gas. Our results provide strong evidence for the energy and momentum feedback by the hot AGN wind.