No evidence for fast, galaxy-wide ionised outflows in a nearby quasar — the importance of accounting for beam smearing

To test the scenario that outflows accelerated by active galactic nuclei (AGN) have a major impact on galaxy-wide scales, we have analysed deep VLT/MUSE data for the type-2 quasar/ultraluminous infrared galaxy F13451+1232 — an object that represents the major mergers considered in models of galaxy evolution. After carefully accounting for the effects of atmospheric seeing that had smeared the emission from known compact nuclear outflows across the MUSE field of view, we find that the large-scale kinematics in F13451+1232 are consistent with gravitational motions that are expected in a galaxy merger. Therefore, the fast (W80 > 500 km s−1) warm-ionised AGN-driven outflows in this object are limited to the central ∼100 pc of the galaxy, although we cannot rule out larger-scale, lower-velocity outflows. Moreover, we directly demonstrate that failure to account for the beam-smearing effects of atmospheric seeing would have led to the mass outflow rates and kinetic powers of spatially-extended emission being overestimated by orders of magnitude. We also show that beam-smeared compact-outflow emission can be significant beyond radial distances of 3.5 arcseconds (more than eight times the radius of the seeing disk), and support the argument that some previous claims of large-scale outflows in active galaxies were likely the result of this effect rather than genuine galaxy-wide (r > 5 kpc) outflows. Our study therefore provides further evidence that warm-ionised AGN-driven outflows are limited to the central kiloparsecs of galaxies and highlights the critical importance of accounting for atmospheric seeing in ground-based observational studies of active galaxies.