Other
Scientific paper
Jan 2012
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012aas...21924334r&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #219, #243.34
Other
Scientific paper
Although it is widely accepted that supermassive black holes rest at the centers of most, if not all, galaxies in our universe, it is not understood what is responsible for driving material down to the black holes in Seyfert galaxies generating active galactic nuclei (AGN) while other galaxies lack this central activity and remain quiescent. Using high resolution, 2D integral field data from the Keck and VLT telescopes we can now observe the central few hundred parsecs in local galaxies to determine what is unique about Seyfert galaxies that leads to the fueling of AGN. With a sample of Seyfert and quiescent galaxies matched based on host galaxy properties, we identify differences in the observed characteristics of the nuclear molecular gas. First results show that the Seyfert galaxies have a greater central accumulation of molecular gas, with as much as five times more mass within the central 50pc compared to quiescent galaxies. The distribution of the gas is suggested to be, regardless of AGN classification, disk-like based on the best fit Sersic indices. A comparison of the azimuthally averaged velocity and velocity dispersion in this matched sample will also reveal differences in nuclear properties such as the height of the molecular gas disk and the column density of the nuclear gas.
Davies Richard I.
Hicks K. S. E.
Malkan Matthew A.
Rivers Austin
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