Incidence and energetics of AGN winds in the distant UniverseRecording

by Blessing Musiimenta (University of Bologna, UNIBO)

Wednesday Jan 15, 2025, 4:00 PM → 5:30 PM Europe/Madrid

In the context of an evolutionary model, the outflow phase of an active galactic nucleus (AGN) occurs at the peak of its activity, once the central supermassive black hole (SMBH) is massive enough to generate sufficient power to counterbalance the potential well of the host galaxy. This feedback phase plays a vital role in galaxy evolution, but identifying AGNs in this phase for robust statistical studies remains a challenge. My presentation will focus on the selection and characterization of AGNs in this phase, emphasizing ionized outflows and their effects on host galaxies. We developed an approach to select powerful AGNs in the feedback phase using optical/IR colours, and optical and X-ray spectral properties from the eROSITA Final Equatorial-Depth Survey (eFEDS). We traced and characterised outflows using SDSS spectroscopy, and explored the link between AGN luminosity and outflow properties. We found that the X-ray selection (eROSITA) is a powerful tool to select AGN in the feedback phase and this X-ray active phase is the best tracer of fast winds. We found a weak correlation between AGN bolometric luminosity and outflow velocity and ~30% of our sample have kinetic coupling efficiencies within 1-10%. We performed a spatially resolved analysis of a red, X-ray obscured and X-ray luminous quasar, at a redshift of z=0.6. Our analysis reveals that the quasar resides in an interacting system with 3 companion galaxies with AGN-driven outflows that extend up to 9.5 kpc and move at high velocities exceeding 1000 km/s. To enhance AGNs in the feedback phase selection further, we employed machine learning technigues. A random forest classifier achieved 95% accuracy in distinguishing feedback and non-feedback phases, demonstrating the potential of such techniques in large-scale surveys like first eROSITA all sky survey.

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