Study of Outflows from Supermassive Black Holes

Our recent Chandra, XMM-Newton and Suzaku observations of several high redshift quasars have revealed the presence of massive outflows of highly ionized, high-metallicity material driven from near the black hole (a few gravitational radii, rg) with velocities of up to 0.7c (see Figure 1; Chartas et al. 2002, ApJ, 579, 169; Chartas et al. 2003 ApJ, 595, 85; Chartas et al. 2007, AJ, 133, 1849; Saez et al. 2008 submitted to ApJ). The mass outflow rate in APM 08279+5255 (Ṁ ∼ 1–10 M⊙ yr ) is found to be comparable to its accretion rate and the fraction of bolometric energy released in the form of kinetic energy is ǫK ∼ 0.02–0.12.