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ABSTRACT We present the hot molecular and warm ionized gas kinematics for 33 nearby (0.001 ≲ z ≲ 0.056) X-ray selected active galaxies using the H$_2\, 2.1218\, \mu$m and Br γ emission lines observed in the K band with the Gemini near-infrared integral field spectrograph. The observations cover the inner 0.04–2 kpc of each active galactic nucleus at spatial resolutions of 4–250 pc with a velocity resolution of σinst ≈ 20 ${\rm km\, s^{-1}}$. We find that 31 objects (94 per cent) present a kinematically disturbed region (KDR) seen in ionized gas, while such regions are observed in hot molecular gas for 25 galaxies (76 per cent). We interpret the KDR as being due to outflows with masses of 102–107 and 100–104 M⊙ for the ionized and hot molecular gas, respectively. The ranges of mass-outflow rates ($\dot{M}_{\rm out}$) and kinetic power ($\dot{E}_{\rm K}$) of the outflows are 10−3–101 M⊙ yr−1 and ∼1037–1043 erg s−1 for the ionized gas outflows, and 10−5–10−2 M⊙ yr−1 and 1035–1039 erg s−1 for the hot molecular gas outflows. The median coupling efficiency in our sample is $\dot{E}_{\mathrm{K}}/L_{\rm bol}\approx 1.8\times 10^{-3}$ and the estimated momentum fluxes of the outflows suggest they are produced by radiation-pressure in low-density environment, with possible contribution from shocks. 

We present the first eight months of data from our secondary target programme within the ongoing Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey. Our programme uses a mid-infrared and optical colour selection to preferentially target dust-reddened quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) that would have otherwise been missed by the nominal DESI QSO selection. So far, we have obtained optical spectra for 3038 candidates, of which ∼70 per cent of the high-quality objects (those with robust redshifts) are visually confirmed to be Type 1 QSOs, consistent with the expected fraction from the main DESI QSO survey. By fitting a dust-reddened blue QSO composite to the QSO spectra, we find they are well-fitted by a normal QSO with up to AV ∼ 4 mag of line-of-sight dust extinction. Utilizing radio data from the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS) DR2, we identify a striking positive relationship between the amount of line-of-sight dust extinction towards a QSO and the radio detection fraction, that is not driven by radio-loud systems, redshift and/or luminosity effects. This demonstrates an intrinsic connection between dust reddening and the production of radio emission in QSOs, whereby the radio emission is most likely due to low-powered jets or winds/outflows causing shocks in a dusty environment. On the basis of this evidence, we suggest that red QSOs may represent a transitional ‘blow-out’ phase in the evolution of QSOs, where winds and outflows evacuate the dust and gas to reveal an unobscured blue QSO.

 

We have recently found fundamental differences in the radio properties of red quasars when compared to typical blue quasars. In this paper, we use data from the X-shooter spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope, providing spectral coverage from ∼3000–$25\,000\,$ Å, of a sample of 40 red and blue luminous quasars at 1.45 < z < 1.65 to explore the connections between the radio, emission-line, and accretion-disc properties. We fit various dust-extinction curves to the data and find that dust reddening can fully explain the observed colours for the majority of the red quasars in our sample, with moderate extinctions ranging from AV ∼ 0.06–0.7 mag. We confront our spectra with a simple thin accretion-disc model and find this can describe the continua of both the blue and red quasars, once corrected for dust extinction; we also find no significant differences in the accretion properties. We detect ionized outflows in a number of red and blue quasars, but do not find any significant evidence that they are more prevalent in the red quasar population. Overall our findings imply that the radio emission is more closely connected to circumnuclear/ISM opacity rather than accretion disc or outflow differences.

 

We compare the contribution of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and star formation towards dust heating in sub-mm galaxies (SMGs). We have used ALMA at 0.1-arcsec resolution to image a complete flux-limited sample of seven sub-mm sources previously shown to have spectral energy distributions that were as well-fitted by obscured AGN as star-forming galaxy templates. Indeed, two sub-mm sources were known to be quasars from their absorbed X-ray emission. We find the sub-mm sizes of all SMGs to be small (≈1−2 kpc) and generally ∼3 times smaller than any host detected in the near-infrared (NIR). In all cases, the five SMGs are comparable in sub-mm size to the two known quasars and four z ≈ 6 quasars, also observed with ALMA. We detect no evidence of diffuse spiral arms in this complete sample. We then convert the far-infrared (FIR) luminosities to star formation rate (SFR) surface densities and find that the SMGs occupy the same range as the known quasars in our sample. We conclude that in terms of sub-mm size, extent relative to host and SFR density as well as luminosity and mid-IR (MIR) colour, there is little distinction between the SMGs and sub-mm bright quasars. Finally, we present preliminary evidence that SMGs with higher MIR luminosities and sub-mm loud quasars tend to have dust components that range to hotter temperatures than their less luminous SMG counterparts. In light of these results, we continue to suggest that luminous SMGs may host dust-absorbed quasars that may simultaneously dominate the FIR and hard X-ray backgrounds.

 

A key component of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey validation (SV) is a detailed visual inspection (VI) of the optical spectroscopic data to quantify key survey metrics. In this paper we present results from VI of the quasar survey using deep coadded SV spectra. We show that the majority (≈70%) of the main-survey targets are spectroscopically confirmed as quasars, with ≈16% galaxies, ≈6% stars, and ≈8% low-quality spectra lacking reliable features. A nonnegligible fraction of the quasars are misidentified by the standard spectroscopic pipeline, but we show that the majority can be recovered using post-pipeline “afterburner” quasar-identification approaches. We combine these “afterburners” with our standard pipeline to create a modified pipeline to increase the overall quasar yield. At the depth of the main DESI survey, both pipelines achieve a good-redshift purity (reliable redshifts measured within 3000 km s⁻¹) of ≈99%; however, the modified pipeline recovers ≈94% of the visually inspected quasars, as compared to ≈86% from the standard pipeline. We demonstrate that both pipelines achieve a median redshift precision and accuracy of ≈100 km s⁻¹and ≈70 km s⁻¹, respectively. We constructed composite spectra to investigate why some quasars are missed by the standard pipeline and find that they are more host-galaxy dominated (i.e., distant analogs of “Seyfert galaxies”) and/or more dust reddened than the standard-pipeline quasars. We also show example spectra to demonstrate the overall diversity of the DESI quasar sample and provide strong-lensing candidates where two targets contribute to a single spectrum.