New method to study outflows from galactic centers in preparation for Athena

Some galaxies have black holes in their center that drive gas out of them. We don't know much about their impact or origin. The future X-ray mission will change this. Astronomers from SRON and UvA have developed a new method to study the outflows in preparation for the launch.

Some of the pictures of stars in the sky are not real. Some dots are in the center of the entire universe. They blend in with the stars because they are so far away. This trick fooled the astronomer until the 1950s, when they called them quasi-stellar objects, or quasars. The spectrum of some dots was redshifted, indicating a large distance from Earth where a star would not be visible.

The light from quasars must come from the centers of the galaxies. The AGN are predicted to change the evolution of the galaxies by attracting and expelling massive amounts of material from their vicinity.

The SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research is working with the University of Amsterdam to study the outflows from AGN using X-ray space telescopes. The team has developed a new method to study AGN outflows in preparation for the launch of the new X-ray mission. In X-rays, AGN brightness can be very variable. The researchers will use the X-ray spectrum from Athena to see how the outflows respond to the variations in brightness.

We want to understand what drives the outflows and what impact they have on their host galaxy, says Juranova, who led the work. Information about the timescale at which the light from the AGN ionizes the outflowing gas is needed. We found a way to measure the gas response in outflows with different properties thanks to our simulations. When we get the actual data from Athena, we compare them to our models and determine which one matches the best observations.

Frequency analysis is used to identify the outflows. You can compare it to the temperature in The Netherlands. It goes up and down on a daily basis. You can easily disentangle the different types of changes with the analysis we use, because they are happening at different frequencies. We can study these processes individually. The light from the AGN changes in time because of processes happening at different times, and so the Frequency approach helps us understand what is going on there.

More information: A Juráňová et al, Spectral-timing of AGN ionized outflows with Athena, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2022). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stab3731 Journal information: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Citation: New method to study outflows from galactic centers in preparation for Athena (2022, March 28) retrieved 28 March 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-03-method-outflows-galactic-centers-athena.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.