The Morphology and Kinematics of a Giant, Symmetric Nebula around a Radio-loud Quasar 3C 57: Extended Rotating Gas or Biconical Outflows?

Gas flows between galaxies and the circumgalactic medium play a crucial role in galaxy evolution. When ionized by a quasar, these gas flows can be directly traced as giant nebulae. We present a study of a giant nebula around a radio-loud quasar, 3C 57 at z ≈ 0.672. Observations from MUSE reveal that the nebula is elongated with a major axis of 70 kpc and a minor axis of 40 kpc. The nebula displays an approximately symmetric blueshifted-redshifted pattern along the major axis and multicomponent emission features in its [O II] and [O III] profiles. The morphology and kinematics can be explained as rotating gas or biconical outflow, both of which qualitatively reproduce the observed position-velocity diagram. The 3C 57 nebula is significantly more kinematically disturbed, with W80 (the line width encompassing 80% of the flux) of approximately 300-400 km s−1, compared to H i gas in local early-type galaxies, which typically shows W80 ≈ 50 km s−1. This velocity dispersion is comparable to the gas in cool-core clusters despite originating in a group 100 times less massive. For biconical outflow models, the inferred 10°-20° inclination angle is in tension with the unobscured nature of the quasar, as the dusty torus is expected to be perpendicular to the outflow. Neither a quiescent rotating gas origin nor an biconical outflow fully reproduces the observed kinematics and morphology of the 3C 57 nebula, suggesting a more intricate origin likely involving both rotation and active galactic nuclei feedback.