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AGN SIG Seminar

Active Galactic Nuclei Science Interest Group

DATE

May 23, 2022

TIME

12:00 pm EST

COMMUNITY

AGN SIG

TYPE

Seminar

Tracking Black Hole Fueling and Feedback with Adaptive Optics and ALMA

Anne Medling

I will present KOALA: the Keck OSIRIS AO LIRG Analysis, an adaptive optics-assisted near-infrared integral field spectroscopy campaign of 30+ nearby gas-rich galaxy merger nuclei. Our dataset traces stellar and gas kinematics and properties at few 10s of pc resolution, providing an excellent laboratory for studying the fueling and feedback associated with the central supermassive black holes and nuclear starbursts. These data have shown that 50 – 500 pc nuclear disks are a nearly ubiquitous mechanism for funneling gas to the black holes. High central dynamical masses suggest that black holes may 'claim their mass' early in a merger, but that that material takes much of the merger timescale to find its way through the accretion process. This gas pileup scenario is supported by recent ultra-longbaseline ALMA observations and presents a significant challenge to current common sub-grid black hole accretion rate prescriptions. Our dataset also reveals high ratios of shock-excited molecular gas (H2 2.12 micron emission) compared to ionized hydrogen (Br gamma emission) reveal star formation- and AGN-driven nuclear outflows that in some cases can be traced out to several kpc scales.

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An illustration of Sun-like star HD 181327 and its surrounding debris disk. The star is at top right. It is surrounded by a far larger debris disk that forms an incomplete ellpitical path and is cut off at right. There’s a huge cavity between the star and the disk. The debris disk is shown in shades of light gray. Toward the top and left, there are finer, more discrete points in a range of sizes. The disk appears hazier and smokier at the bottom. The star is bright white at center, with a hazy blue region around it. The background of space is black. The label Artist's Concept appears at lower left.