1. A fast and long-lived outflow from the supermassive black hole in NGC 5548
- Author
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Francesco Ursini, Graziella Branduardi-Raymont, R. Person, Stefano Bianchi, L. Di Gesu, Dominic J. Walton, Shai Kaspi, Giorgio Matt, Fiona A. Harrison, Gerard A. Kriss, Justin Ely, A. de Rosa, Stéphane Paltani, M. Mehdipour, Carter Chamberlain, Julien Malzac, R. Boissay, Ciro Pinto, Ehud Behar, M. Whewell, C. P. de Vries, P.-O. Petrucci, B. De Marco, Massimo Cappi, F. Pozo Nuñez, Katrien C. Steenbrugge, Jacobo Ebrero, Jelle Kaastra, Nahum Arav, Kirpal Nandra, Bradley M. Peterson, Elisa Costantini, Gabriele Ponti, Hiromi Seta, Kaastra, J, Kriss, Ga, Cappi, M, Mehdipour, M, Petrucci, Po, Steenbrugge, Kc, Arav, N, Behar, E, Bianchi, Stefano, Boissay, R, Branduardi Raymont, G, Chamberlain, C, Costantini, E, Ely, Jc, Ebrero, J, Di Gesu, L, Harrison, Fa, Kaspi, S, Malzac, J, De Marco, B, Matt, Giorgio, Nandra, K, Paltani, S, Person, R, Peterson, Bm, Pinto, C, Ponti, G, Nunez, Fp, De Rosa, A, Seta, H, Ursini, F, de Vries, Cp, Walton, Dj, and Whewell, M.
- Subjects
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) ,Active galactic nucleus ,Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,FOS: Physical sciences ,Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics ,Astrophysics ,medicine.disease_cause ,medicine ,Astrophysics::Solar and Stellar Astrophysics ,Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics ,Line (formation) ,High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) ,Physics ,Supermassive black hole ,Multidisciplinary ,Astronomy ,Plasma ,Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies ,Galaxy ,3. Good health ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) ,Outflow ,Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,Nucleus ,Ultraviolet ,Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics - 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 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 never 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., Comment: 25 pages, 8 figures. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science, electronically available at Science Express (June 19, 2014). For a brief video explaining the key results of this paper, please visit http://www.issibern.ch/teams/ngc5548/?page_id=25
- Published
- 2014
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