Wind from the black-hole accretion disk driving a molecular outflow in an active galaxy.

Powerful winds driven by active galactic nuclei are often thought to affect the evolution of both supermassive black holes and their host galaxies, quenching star formation and explaining the close relationship between black holes and galaxies. Recent observations of large-scale molecular outflows in ultraluminous infrared galaxies support this quasar-feedback idea, because they directly trace the gas from which stars form. Theoretical models suggest that these outflows originate as energy-conserving flows driven by fast accretion-disk winds. Proposed connections between large-scale molecular outflows and accretion-disk activity in ultraluminous galaxies were incomplete because no accretion-disk wind had been detected. Conversely, studies of powerful accretion-disk winds have until now focused only on X-ray observations of local Seyfert galaxies and a few higher-redshift quasars. Here we report observations of a powerful accretion-disk wind with a mildly relativistic velocity (a quarter that of light) in the X-ray spectrum of IRAS F11119+3257, a nearby (redshift 0.189) optically classified type 1 ultraluminous infrared galaxy hosting a powerful molecular outflow. The active galactic nucleus is responsible for about 80 per cent of the emission, with a quasar-like luminosity of 1.5 × 10(46) ergs per second. The energetics of these two types of wide-angle outflows is consistent with the energy-conserving mechanism that is the basis of the quasar feedback in active galactic nuclei that lack powerful radio jets (such jets are an alternative way to drive molecular outflows).

Galaxy evolution. Black hole feedback in the luminous quasar PDS 456.

The evolution of galaxies is connected to the growth of supermassive black holes in their centers. During the quasar phase, a huge luminosity is released as matter falls onto the black hole, and radiation-driven winds can transfer most of this energy back to the host galaxy. Over five different epochs, we detected the signatures of a nearly spherical stream of highly ionized gas in the broadband x-ray spectra of the luminous quasar PDS 456. This persistent wind is expelled at relativistic speeds from the inner accretion disk, and its wide aperture suggests an effective coupling with the ambient gas. The outflow's kinetic power larger than 10(46) ergs per second is enough to provide the feedback required by models of black hole and host galaxy coevolution.

The signature of supernova ejecta in the X-ray afterglow of the gamma-ray burst 011211.

Now that gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been determined to lie at cosmological distances, their isotropic burst energies are estimated to be as high as 1054 erg (ref. 2), making them the most energetic phenomena in the Universe. The nature of the progenitors responsible for the bursts remains, however, elusive. The favoured models range from the merger of two neutron stars in a binary system to the collapse of a massive star. Spectroscopic studies of the afterglow emission could reveal details of the environment of the burst, by indicating the elements present, the speed of the outflow and an estimate of the temperature. Here we report an X-ray spectrum of the afterglow of GRB011211, which shows emission lines of magnesium, silicon, sulphur, argon, calcium and possibly nickel, arising in metal-enriched material with an outflow velocity of the order of one-tenth the speed of light. These observations strongly favour models where a supernova explosion from a massive stellar progenitor precedes the burst event and is responsible for the outflowing matter.