Revealing the complexity of ionized gas outflows in powerful Type 2 AGN in the local Universe

There exist scaling relations that link the mass of supermassive black holes with both the velocity dispersion and the mass of the central stellar cusp of their host galaxies. This implies that these two components grow in tandem. Feedback from actively accreting supermassive black holes (AGN), in the form of multi-phase gas outflows, has been argued to be the agent of this co-evolution. Here we employ the powerful GMOS integral field spectroscopy unit on the 8.2m Gemini-North telescope to investigate ionized gas outflows of luminous Type 2 AGN in the local Universe (z<0.1). Our sample of 6 galaxies is drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and was selected based on their [OIII] dust-corrected luminosity (>1042 erg/s) and signatures of outflows in the [OIII] line profile of their spatially integrated SDSS spectra. These are arguably the best candidates to explore AGN feedback in action since they are < 1% of a large local type 2 AGN SDSS sample selected based on their [OIII] kinematics. We combine a careful spectral decomposition of the [OIII] and $H{\alpha}$ line profiles with spatial information on ~0.5kpc scales to understand the outflow kinematics and energetics in these objects. We find clear evidence for strong outflows in [OIII] and occasionally $H{\alpha}$ that are clearly driven by the ionizing radiation of the AGN. We kinematically and spatially decompose outflowing and rotating ionized gas components. We find [OIII] to be a better tracer of AGN outflows, while $H{\alpha}$ appears to be strongly affected by both stellar rotation and outflows induced by ongoing star formation. The observed kinematics and spatial distribution of the ionized gas imply a large opening angle for the outflow. Finally, we find the projected outflow velocity to decrease as a function of distance, while its dispersion shows a more complex structure with a potentially initially increasing trend (out to 0.5-1kpc distances).