Dynamics of Line‐driven Disk Winds in Active Galactic Nuclei. II. Effects of Disk Radiation

We explore consequences of a radiation driven disk wind model for massoutflows from active galactic nuclei (AGN). We performed axisymmetrictime-dependent hydrodynamic calculations using the same computational techniqueas Proga, Stone and Kallman (2000). We test the robustness of radiationlaunching and acceleration of the wind for relatively unfavorable conditions.In particular, we take into account the central engine radiation as a source ofionizing photons but neglect its contribution to the radiation force.Additionally, we account for the attenuation of the X-ray radiation bycomputing the X-ray optical depth in the radial direction assuming that onlyelectron scattering contributes to the opacity. Our new simulations confirm themain result from our previous work: the disk atmosphere can 'shield' itselffrom external X-rays so that the local disk radiation can launch gas off thedisk photosphere. We also find that the local disk force suffices to acceleratethe disk wind to high velocities in the radial direction. This is true providedthe wind does not change significantly the geometry of the disk radiation bycontinuum scattering and absorption processes; we discuss plausibility of thisrequirement. Synthetic profiles of a typical resonance ultraviolet linepredicted by our models are consistent with observations of broad absorptionline (BAL) QSOs.Comment: LaTeX, contains color figures, to appear in Ap