Bubbling up: AGN wind explains Fermi/eRosita bubble morphology, kinematics and X-ray emission
Although Sagittarius A* is quiescent today, the Galactic Centre bears clear evidence for past, and likely episodic, activity: X-ray echoes in molecular clouds, radio lobes and bubbles (15 pc to ~100 pc scales), X-ray chimneys, and most strikingly, the ten-kiloparsec bipolar Fermi and eRosita bubbles. The origin of the Fermi and eRosita bubbles remains debated. Here we test whether Wind driven by an active Sagittarius A* can inflate bubbles consistent with their observed morphology, line-of-sight kinematics, and X-ray emission. I will present results from a set of simulations of an AGN episode in a simplified Milky Way model using Arepo and the direct AGN wind injection scheme BOLA. We vary four key parameters - AGN luminosity, episode duration, wind velocity, and halo density - to explore the range of possible outflow morphologies and kinematics. We find that a 0.4 Myr AGN episode at ~0.4 L_Edd reproduces the observed bubble properties: their height, width, X-ray luminosity, and line-of-sight kinematics. These matches are achieved 6 Myr after the AGN episode, consistent with the bubbles' inferred age. This shows that fossil outflows exist well beyond the initial outburst.
Authors
- Matas Tartėnas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-7373-180X)
- Kastytis Zubovas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9656-6281)
- T. Costa
Institutions
- Center for Physical Sciences and Technology (LT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Published
- 2026-10-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23775747
- Primary Topic
- Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00