GA-NIFS: Powerful and frequent outflows in moderate-luminosity active galactic nuclei at z ~ 3–6
15 affiliations
- 1INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri
- 2Scuola Normale Superiore
- 3European Space Agency, ESAC, Villanueva de la Cañada
- 4Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM)
- 5Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA
- 6European Space Agency, c/o Space Telescope Science Institute
- 7Department of Physics, University of Oxford
- 8Sorbonne Université, CNRS, UMR 7095, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris
- 9Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge
- 10Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge
- 11Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London
- 12Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik
- 13AURA for ESA, Space Telescope Science Institute
- 14Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Firenze
- 15Los Alamos National Laboratory
Abstract
The period between z ~ 3–6 (‘cosmic morning’), a key transformational phase in galaxy evolution preceding ‘cosmic noon’ ( z ~ 1–3), is very poorly explored in terms of feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) acting through gas outflows driven by energetic radiation. In this work, we study the properties of outflows in AGN (mostly X-ray-selected) from the GOODS-S field, exploiting JWST NIRSpec IFU observations as part of the Galaxy Assembly with NIRSpec IFS (GA-NIFS) GTO survey. Together with its twin subsample from the COSMOS field reported in a previous GA-NIFS work, this constitutes the largest spatially resolved sample of AGN outflows at these redshifts to date, comprising 16 targets with outflows (out of a total of 19 AGN), and probes the unexplored regime of AGN at z ~ 3–6 with bolometric luminosities of L bol ~10 45–46 erg s −1 . We mapped the rest-frame optical ionised gas emission lines (e.g. [O III ], H α ) at sub-kiloparsec scales and spectrally isolated the broad wings that trace fast outflows from the gas at rest in the host galaxies. The incidence of ionised outflows in the GOODS-S + COSMOS GA-NIFS sample is high (>75%), among the highest at any redshift; however, a more homogeneous outflow detection method and sample selection would be required to draw firm conclusions on the redshift evolution of the outflow incidence. We inferred outflow velocities between ~600–2000 km s −1 , maximum radii of ≲1 up to ~4 kpc, and ionised gas mass outflow rates of ~0.1 up to ≳100 M ⊙ yr −1 , which in some cases can exceed the host galaxy star formation rate (SFR). The assumed electron density of 1000 cm −3 is conservative; lower values, as measured in some outflow studies and suggested by theory, would imply inversely proportionally higher mass outflow rates. We find that the outflow properties inferred for the GOODS-S + COSMOS GA-NIFS AGN sample and their relations to L bol and SFR generally align with those observed for other spatially resolved literature samples of AGN outflows across different redshifts and AGN luminosities. Nonetheless, after accounting for any luminosity bias, our analysis suggests a cosmic evolution of the outflow properties, with higher median mass outflow rates (and possibly also mass loading factors) at higher redshifts, especially at z > 3, which indicates that AGN outflows were stronger in the early Universe than at later times, and thus potentially more capable of affecting their host galaxy.
Related
- Radio-dust connection in quasars driven by powerful ionised outflows
- Detection of episodic Ultra-fast Outflows in the Low-luminosity quasar Mrk 205 using XMM-Newton data
- An ALMA view of the Jet-Arc CO clouds toward the TeV γ-ray source HESS J1023-575 and Westerlund 2; Evidence for the footprints of microquasar jets, the very powerful cosmic-ray accelerator in the Galactic disk
- QED VI: Neutral hydrogen gas in supernova-driven galactic outflows
- Galactic outflows and star-formation quenching: a JWST perspective.
BibTeX
@article{venturi2026ganifs,
title = {{GA-NIFS: Powerful and frequent outflows in moderate-luminosity active galactic nuclei at z ~ 3–6}},
author = {Giacomo Venturi and Stefano Carniani and E. Bertola and Chiara Circosta and Eleonora Parlanti and Michele Perna and Santiago Arribas and Torsten Böker and Andrew J. Bunker and S. Charlot and Francesco D’Eugenio and R. Maiolino and Bruno Rodríguez Del Pino and Hannah Übler and G. Cresci and Gareth C. Jones and Nimisha Kumari and Isabella Lamperti and Madeline A. Marshall and Jan Scholtz and Sandra Zamora},
journal = {Astronomy \& Astrophysics - A\&A},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
doi = {10.1051/0004-6361/202558509},
eprint = {2512.09996},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05760744v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - GA-NIFS: Powerful and frequent outflows in moderate-luminosity active galactic nuclei at z ~ 3–6
AU - Giacomo Venturi
AU - Stefano Carniani
AU - E. Bertola
AU - Chiara Circosta
AU - Eleonora Parlanti
AU - Michele Perna
AU - Santiago Arribas
AU - Torsten Böker
AU - Andrew J. Bunker
AU - S. Charlot
AU - Francesco D’Eugenio
AU - R. Maiolino
AU - Bruno Rodríguez Del Pino
AU - Hannah Übler
AU - G. Cresci
AU - Gareth C. Jones
AU - Nimisha Kumari
AU - Isabella Lamperti
AU - Madeline A. Marshall
AU - Jan Scholtz
AU - Sandra Zamora
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/06/29
JO - Astronomy & Astrophysics - A&A
DO - 10.1051/0004-6361/202558509
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05760744v1
AB - The period between z ~ 3–6 (‘cosmic morning’), a key transformational phase in galaxy evolution preceding ‘cosmic noon’ ( z ~ 1–3), is very poorly explored in terms of feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) acting through gas outflows driven by energetic radiation. In this work, we study the properties of outflows in AGN (mostly X-ray-selected) from the GOODS-S field, exploiting JWST NIRSpec IFU observations as part of the Galaxy Assembly with NIRSpec IFS (GA-NIFS) GTO survey. Together with its twin subsample from the COSMOS field reported in a previous GA-NIFS work, this constitutes the largest spatially resolved sample of AGN outflows at these redshifts to date, comprising 16 targets with outflows (out of a total of 19 AGN), and probes the unexplored regime of AGN at z ~ 3–6 with bolometric luminosities of L bol ~10 45–46 erg s −1 . We mapped the rest-frame optical ionised gas emission lines (e.g. [O III ], H α ) at sub-kiloparsec scales and spectrally isolated the broad wings that trace fast outflows from the gas at rest in the host galaxies. The incidence of ionised outflows in the GOODS-S + COSMOS GA-NIFS sample is high (>75%), among the highest at any redshift; however, a more homogeneous outflow detection method and sample selection would be required to draw firm conclusions on the redshift evolution of the outflow incidence. We inferred outflow velocities between ~600–2000 km s −1 , maximum radii of ≲1 up to ~4 kpc, and ionised gas mass outflow rates of ~0.1 up to ≳100 M ⊙ yr −1 , which in some cases can exceed the host galaxy star formation rate (SFR). The assumed electron density of 1000 cm −3 is conservative; lower values, as measured in some outflow studies and suggested by theory, would imply inversely proportionally higher mass outflow rates. We find that the outflow properties inferred for the GOODS-S + COSMOS GA-NIFS AGN sample and their relations to L bol and SFR generally align with those observed for other spatially resolved literature samples of AGN outflows across different redshifts and AGN luminosities. Nonetheless, after accounting for any luminosity bias, our analysis suggests a cosmic evolution of the outflow properties, with higher median mass outflow rates (and possibly also mass loading factors) at higher redshifts, especially at z > 3, which indicates that AGN outflows were stronger in the early Universe than at later times, and thus potentially more capable of affecting their host galaxy.
SN - 0004-6361
SN - 1432-0746
ER -