EMPRESS. VI. Outflows Investigated in Low-mass Galaxies with M ∗ = 104–107 M ⊙: Weak Feedback in Low-mass Galaxies?

Abstract

Abstract We study emission line profiles of 21 nearby low-mass (M * = 104–107 M ⊙) galaxies in deep medium-high resolution spectra taken with Magellan/MagE. These low-mass galaxies are actively star-forming systems with high specific star formation rates of ∼100–1000 Gyr−1 that are well above the star formation main sequence and its extrapolation. We identify broad-line components of Hα and [O iii]λ5007 emission in 14 out of the 21 galaxies that cannot be explained by the MagE instrumental profile or the natural broadening of line emission. We conduct double-Gaussian profile fitting to the emission of the 14 galaxies, and find that the broad-line components have line widths significantly larger than those of the narrow-line components, indicative of galactic outflows. The broad-line components have moderately large line widths of ∼100 km s−1. We estimate the maximum outflow velocities v max and obtain values of ≃60–200 km s−1, which are found to be comparable to or slightly larger than the escape velocities. Positive correlations of v max with star formation rates, stellar masses, and circular velocities extend down into this low-mass regime. Broad- to narrow-line flux ratios (BNRs) are generally found to be smaller than those of massive galaxies. The small v max and BNRs suggest that the mass-loading factors η can be as small as 0.1–1 or below, in contrast to the large η of energy-driven outflows predicted by numerical simulations.