The Limited Impact of AGN Outflows: IFU study of 20 local AGNs

To investigate AGN outflows as a tracer of AGN feedback on the host galaxies, we perform integral-field spectroscopy of 20 type 2 AGNs at z<0.1 using the Magellan/IMACS and the VLT/VIMOS. The observed objects are luminous AGNs with the [O III] luminosity >$10^{41.5}erg/s$, and exhibit strong outflow signatures in the [O III] kinematics. We obtain the maps of the narrow and broad components of [O III] and $H{\alpha}$ lines by decomposing the emission-line profile. The broad components in both [O III] and $H{\alpha}$ represent the non-gravitational kinematics, (i.e., gas outflows), while the narrow components represent the gravitational kinematics (i.e., rotational disks), especially in $H{\alpha}$. By using the spatially integrated spectra within the flux-weighted size of the narrow-line region, we estimate the outflow energetics. The ionized gas mass is $(1.0-38.5){\times}10^5M_{\odot}$, and the mean mass outflow rate is $4.6{\pm}4.3M_{\odot}/yr$, which is a factor of ~260 higher than the mean mass accretion rate $0.02{\pm}0.01M_{\odot}/yr$. The mean energy injection rate is $0.8{\pm}0.6%$ of the AGN bolometric luminosity Lbol, while the mean momentum flux is $(5.4{\pm}3.6){\times}L_{bol}/c$, except for two most kinematically energetic AGNs. The estimated energetics are consistent with the expectations for energy-conserving outflows from AGNs, yet we do not find any supporting evidence of instantaneous star-formation quenching due to the outflows.