Signatures of jet-cloud interaction in radio-loud AGNs from MALS Data Release I (DR1) sample
Cold gas viz. atomic and molecular hydrogen forms the dominant fraction of known AGN driven outflows as well as fuels both star-formation and AGN activity. The MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey (MALS; https://mals.iucaa.in/) aims to provide a dust-unbiased census of kinematics and distribution of cold gas associated with radio-loud AGNs up-to a redshift of 1.5, where steep evolution in AGN activity takes place. MALS has observed nearly a million radio sources using MeerKAT’s L- and UHF-bands, with continuum and spectral line sensitivities of ~20 microJy/b and ~0.5 mJy/b per 6 km/s channel, respectively. I’ll discuss the continuum catalogs from the survey, sources from which are being searched for HI 21-cm and OH 18-cm absorptions (tracers for cold gas). Combining wideband SEDs from MALS with multi-wavelength data, we aim to characterize the host-galaxy/AGN properties, enabling studies of various correlations between jet power, jet age etc., with properties of the outflowing gas. The large sample of associated absorbers from the survey will probe multiple scenarios of jet-cloud interaction. I’ll present a few such examples of systems where combining radio and multi-wavelength data allowed us to constrain AGN-driven outflow scenarios.