HST/COS Observations of Quasar Outflows in the 500–1050 Å Rest Frame. VI. Wide, Energetic Outflows in SDSS J0755+2306
Xinfeng Xu, Nahum Arav, Timothy R. Miller, G. A. Kriss, Rachel Plesha
Abstract
Abstract We present the analysis of two outflows (S1 at −5500 km s −1 and S2 at −9700 km s −1 ) seen in recent Hubble Space Telescope /Cosmic Origins Spectrograph observations of quasar SDSS J0755+2306 ( z = 0.854). The outflows are detected as absorption troughs from both high-ionization species, including N iii , O iii , and S iv , and very high-ionization species, including Ar viii , Ne viii , and Na ix . The derived photoionization solutions show that each outflow requires a two ionization-phase solution. For S1, troughs from S iv * and S iv allow us to derive an electron number density, = 1.8 × 10 4 cm −3 , and its distance from the central source of R = 270 pc. For S2, troughs from O iii * and O iii yield = 1.2 × 10 3 cm −3 and R = 1600 pc. The kinetic luminosity of S2 is >12% of the Eddington luminosity for the quasar and, therefore, can provide strong AGN feedback effects. Comparison of absorption troughs from O iii and O vi in both outflow systems supports the idea that for a given element, higher-ionization ions have larger covering fractions than lower-ionization ones.