Radiation-driven outflows in AGNs: revisiting feedback effects of scattered and reprocessed photons

Abstract

ABSTRACT We perform 2D hydrodynamical simulations of slowly rotating accretion flows in the region of $0.01\!-\!7\, \mathrm{pc}$ around a supermassive black holes with $M_\mathrm{BH} = 10^{8} \, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$. The accretion flow is irradiated by the photons from the central active galactic nucleus (AGN). In addition to the direct radiation from the AGN, we have also included the ‘re-radiation’, i.e. the locally produced radiation by Thomson scattering, line, and bremsstrahlung radiation. Compare to our previous work, we have improved the calculation of radiation force due to the Thomson scattering of X-ray photons from the central AGN. We find that this improvement can significantly increase the mass flux and velocity of outflow. We have compared the properties of outflow – including mass outflow rate, velocity, and kinetic luminosity of outflow – in our simulation with the observed properties of outflow in AGNs and found that they are in good consistency. This implies that the combination of line and re-radiation forces is the possible origin of observed outflow in luminous AGNs.