1. GA-NIFS: Multi-phase outflows in a star-forming galaxy at $z \sim 5.5$
- Author
-
Parlanti, Eleonora, Carniani, Stefano, Venturi, Giacomo, Herrera-Camus, Rodrigo, Arribas, Santiago, Bunker, Andrew J., Charlot, Stephane, D'Eugenio, Francesco, Maiolino, Roberto, Perna, Michele, Übler, Hannah, Böker, Torsten, Cresci, Giovanni, Curti, Mirko, Jones, Gareth C., Lamperti, Isabella, and Zamora, Sandra
- Subjects
Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies ,Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics - Abstract
Galactic outflows driven by star formation or active galactic nuclei are typically formed by multi-phase gas whose temperature spans over 4 orders of magnitude. Probing the different outflow components requires multi-wavelength observations and long exposure times, especially in the distant Universe. So far, most of the high-z studies have focused on a single gas phase, but this kind of analysis may potentially miss a non-negligible fraction of the total outflowing gas content. In this work, we analyze the spatially resolved rest-frame UV and optical emission from HZ4, the highest redshift main sequence star-forming galaxy having a detected [C II] outflow, which traces the neutral gas component. Our goal is to study the ionized interstellar medium in the galaxy and the properties of the ionized outflow as traced by the [O III]$\lambda$5007\r{A} and H$\alpha$ emission lines. We exploit JWST/NIRSpec observations in the integral field spectroscopy mode to investigate the galaxy properties by making use of the brightest rest-frame optical emission lines. Their high spectral and spatial resolution allows us to trace the ionized outflow from broad line wings and spatially resolve it. We also re-analyze the [C II] ALMA data to compare the neutral atomic and ionized outflow morphologies, masses, and energetics. We find that the system consists of a galaxy merger, instead of a rotating disk as originally inferred from low-resolution [C II] observations, and hosts an extended ionized outflow. The ionized outflow is being launched from a region hosting an intense burst of star formation and extends over 4 kpc from the launch site. The neutral and ionized outflows are almost co-spatial, but the mass loading factor in the ionized gas phase is two orders of magnitude smaller than in the neutral phase, as found for other lower redshift multi-phase outflows., Comment: 22 pages, 20 figures, submitted to A&A
- Published
- 2024