Evidence for quasar fast outflows being accelerated at the scale of tens of parsecs

Quasar outflows may play a crucial role in regulating the host galaxy, although the spatial scale of quasar outflows remain a major enigma, with their acceleration mechanism poorly understood. The kinematic information of outflow is the key to understanding its origin and acceleration mechanism. Here, we report the galactocentric distances of different outflow components for both a sample and an individual quasar. We find that the outflow distance increases with velocity, with a typical value from several parsecs to more than one hundred parsecs, providing direct evidence for an acceleration happening at a scale of the order of 10 parsecs. These outflows carry similar to 1% of the total quasar energy, while their kinematics are consistent with a dust-driven model with a launching radius comparable to the scale of a dusty torus, indicating that the coupling between dust and quasar radiation may produce powerful feedback that is crucial to galaxy evolution.

Automated summary

Quasar outflows may have a crucial role in regulating their host galaxies. Through the study of their kinematic information, it has been found that quasar outflows accelerate at a scale of about 10 parsecs and carry about 1% of the total quasar energy. Furthermore, the coupling between dust and quasar radiation may play a significant role in galaxy evolution.