Emission-line Outflows from the Circumnuclear to Circumgalactic Scales in a Partially Obscured Quasar release_4p3ue6nj5zhzfnd5h36iig7zh4

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> We present a detailed analysis of the rest-frame UV and optical emission-line spectrum of the partially obscured quasar J121704.70+023417.1 (hereafter J1217+0234). Here the obscuring material, very likely the dusty torus invoked by the AGN unification models, acts as a natural coronagraph, which greatly suppresses both the continuum and broad-line emission in the UV and enables a clear detection of three emission-line components at and beyond the dusty torus scale: (1) The component, with a blueshift of <jats:italic>v</jats:italic> ≈ 1200 km s<jats:sup>−1</jats:sup> and a line width of FWHM ≈ 2600 km s<jats:sup>−1</jats:sup>, shows exceptionally large intensity ratios, such as N <jats:sc>v</jats:sc>/Ly<jats:italic>α</jats:italic> ≈ 2.3 and O <jats:sc>vi</jats:sc>/Ly<jats:italic>α</jats:italic> ≈ 1.4, indicating that the emitting gas is highly ionized and has a very high density up to <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> <jats:sub>H</jats:sub> ∼ 10<jats:sup>13</jats:sup> cm<jats:sup>−3</jats:sup>, possibly associated with the dusty torus. (2) The largely unshifted narrow-line component, with FWHM ≈ 510 km s<jats:sup>−1</jats:sup>, is completely absent in all UV lines but Ly<jats:italic>α </jats:italic>and is significantly detected in the forbidden lines of [O <jats:sc>iii</jats:sc>], [O <jats:sc>ii</jats:sc>], and [Ne <jats:sc>iii</jats:sc>] in the optical, implying massive low-density (<jats:italic>n</jats:italic> <jats:sub>H</jats:sub> ∼ 10<jats:sup>2</jats:sup> cm<jats:sup>−3</jats:sup>) gas ∼40 kpc from the galactic center. (3) The intermediate component is only detected in [O <jats:sc>iii</jats:sc>] with a blueshift and line width between (1) and (2), which might bridge the gases from the circumnuclear to the circumgalactic scales. Follow-up observations with high spatial resolution and high sensitivity are needed to confirm the speculation and are helpful to reveal outflows at multiscales in J1217+0234.
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