1. Ubiquitous Molecular Outflows in z > 4 Massive, Dusty Galaxies. II. Momentum-driven Winds Powered by Star Formation in the Early Universe
- Author
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Spilker, Justin S, Aravena, Manuel, Phadke, Kedar A, Bethermin, Matthieu, Chapman, Scott C, Dong, Chenxing, Gonzalez, Anthony H, Hayward, Christopher C, Hezaveh, Yashar D, Litke, Katrina C, Malkan, Matthew A, Marrone, Daniel P, Narayanan, Desika, Reuter, Cassie, Vieira, Joaquin D, and Weiss, Axel
- Subjects
High-redshift galaxies ,Galactic winds ,Gravitational lensing ,Galaxy evolution ,astro-ph.GA ,Astronomical and Space Sciences ,Atomic ,Molecular ,Nuclear ,Particle and Plasma Physics ,Physical Chemistry (incl. Structural) ,Astronomy & Astrophysics - Abstract
Galactic outflows of molecular gas are a common occurrence in galaxies andmay represent a mechanism by which galaxies self-regulate their growth,redistributing gas that could otherwise have formed stars. We previouslypresented the first survey of molecular outflows at z > 4 towards a sample ofmassive, dusty galaxies. Here we characterize the physical properties of themolecular outflows discovered in our survey. Using low-redshift outflows as atraining set, we find agreement at the factor-of-two level between severaloutflow rate estimates. We find molecular outflow rates 150-800Msun/yr andinfer mass loading factors just below unity. Among the high-redshift sources,the molecular mass loading factor shows no strong correlations with any othermeasured quantity. The outflow energetics are consistent with expectations formomentum-driven winds with star formation as the driving source, with no needfor energy-conserving phases. There is no evidence for AGN activity in oursample, and while we cannot rule out deeply-buried AGN, their presence is notrequired to explain the outflow energetics, in contrast to nearby obscuredgalaxies with fast outflows. The fraction of the outflowing gas that willescape into the circumgalactic medium (CGM), though highly uncertain, may be ashigh as 50%. This nevertheless constitutes only a small fraction of the totalcool CGM mass based on a comparison to z~2-3 quasar absorption line studies,but could represent >~10% of the CGM metal mass. Our survey offers the firststatistical characterization of molecular outflow properties in the very earlyuniverse.
- Published
- 2020