Dissecting the extreme winds from massive black holes
The outflowing winds from supermassive black holes are important because they can regulate the entire evolution of their host galaxies. They have been detected as absorption signatures imprinted in the host black hole (quasar) spectrum at small and large distances from the galactic center for almost 50 years, but their origin and nature is still mostly unknown.
We present a statistical study of about 60,000 of such absorption systems, revealing a rich variety of processes and properties that are now detected or confirmed for the first time. Our results demonstrate that radiation pressure is a key ingredient in driving the outflows, and that they consist of a multiphase medium that covers more than one order of magnitude in temperature, together with other (preliminary) findings.