Resolving the AGN Feeding and Feedback Cycle with ALMA2040

@misc{ruffa2026resolving,
  title = {{Resolving the AGN Feeding and Feedback Cycle with ALMA2040}},
  author = {Ilaria Ruffa and Francesco Salvestrini and Almudena Alonso Herrero and Anelise Audibert and Elena Bertola and Viviana Casasola and Roberto Decarli and Daniel Espada and Umberto Maio and Dieu D. Nguyen and Mamta Pandey-Pommier and Miguel Pereira-Santaella and Francesca Pozzi and Jahang Prathap and Sabine Thater and Maria Vittoria Zanchettin},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.22449},
  eprint = {2610.22449},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.22449},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Resolving the AGN Feeding and Feedback Cycle with ALMA2040
AU  - Ilaria Ruffa
AU  - Francesco Salvestrini
AU  - Almudena Alonso Herrero
AU  - Anelise Audibert
AU  - Elena Bertola
AU  - Viviana Casasola
AU  - Roberto Decarli
AU  - Daniel Espada
AU  - Umberto Maio
AU  - Dieu D. Nguyen
AU  - Mamta Pandey-Pommier
AU  - Miguel Pereira-Santaella
AU  - Francesca Pozzi
AU  - Jahang Prathap
AU  - Sabine Thater
AU  - Maria Vittoria Zanchettin
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/15
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.22449
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.22449
AB  - Understanding how supermassive black holes (SMBHs) grow and regulate the growth of their host galaxies requires tracing the cold molecular interstellar medium (ISM) throughout the full AGN feeding-feedback cycle. Molecular gas constitutes both the primary fuel for star formation and black-hole accretion and one of the ISM phases most directly affected by AGN-driven radiation, winds, and radio jets. Over the past decade, ALMA has resolved circumnuclear molecular discs, rings, spirals, tori, and jet-driven outflows on scales of tens of parsecs in nearby AGN. These studies have demonstrated that combining spatially resolved gas kinematics with multi-line diagnostics is essential for disentangling the physical processes underlying the observed gas conditions. However, our current picture remains largely based on a limited number of exceptionally nearby systems. Most local AGN have instead been observed with ALMA in a single transition at moderate or low angular resolution, preventing a systematic characterisation of both the dynamics and physical state of the gas. Moreover, existing studies have largely overlooked kinetic-mode AGN hosted by massive early-type galaxies, despite their central importance for understanding maintenance-mode feedback. In this White Paper, we argue that ALMA2040 should transform these detailed case studies into a statistical framework. A ∼10× improvement in line sensitivity relative to the current ALMA, together with fast mosaicking, ultra-wide instantaneous bandwidth, and longer baselines (resolving up to ∼9 mas at 230 GHz), will enable homogeneous, multi-line mapping of the molecular ISM on giant molecular clouds scales across statistically significant samples of both radiative- and kinetic-mode AGN out to z≲0.1.
ER  -