AGN Feeding and Feedback: Resolving the Torus
Abstract
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) play a key role in galaxy evolution by regulating star formation within their host galaxies. It is therefore crucial to understand how the central supermassive black holes (SMBH) are fueled by material from the galactic disk, and how AGN feedback impacts the surrounding gas. Most information so far comes from very nearby active galaxies (z < 0.008; D < 35 Mpc), providing the best spatial resolution and revealing randomly oriented dusty molecular tori that fuel SMBHs. A facility such as ALMA2040, offering significantly higher sensitivity and better angular resolution than current ALMA, would enable progress in two fundamental areas that remain beyond the capabilities of all existing and planned observatories: (i) probing the dynamics of the material feeding the AGN down to the accretion disk in nearby galaxies; and (ii) spatially resolving the tori and circum-nuclear regions of more energetic and cosmologically significant AGN, such as local quasars (z ~ 0.1 and Lbol > 10^45 erg/s).
Related
- Resolving the AGN Feeding and Feedback Cycle with ALMA2040
- Resolving the thermal component of stellar feedback with the "anchor-and-refine" scheme in galactic simulations
- Global m=1 slow mode in a near-Keplerian self-gravitating torus: Applications to stellar nuclear disks and AGN molecular tori
- Resolving the complex line-locking structure in quasar J004613+010425 with VLT/X-shooter spectroscopy
- Resolving the heart of the Wolf-Rayet binary Apep with ALMA
BibTeX
@misc{pereirasantaella2026feeding,
title = {{AGN Feeding and Feedback: Resolving the Torus}},
author = {M. Pereira-Santaella and F. Combes and A. Alonso-Herrero and S. Garcia-Burillo and A. Audibert and E. Bertola and M. Bischetti and R. Decarli and I. Garcia-Bernete and I. Lamperti and I. Ruffa and F. Salvestrini and H. R. Stacey and M. V. Zanchettin and V. Casasola and D. Espada and D. Nguyen and M. Pandey-Pommier and S. Thater},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.21678},
eprint = {2610.21678},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.21678},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - AGN Feeding and Feedback: Resolving the Torus
AU - M. Pereira-Santaella
AU - F. Combes
AU - A. Alonso-Herrero
AU - S. Garcia-Burillo
AU - A. Audibert
AU - E. Bertola
AU - M. Bischetti
AU - R. Decarli
AU - I. Garcia-Bernete
AU - I. Lamperti
AU - I. Ruffa
AU - F. Salvestrini
AU - H. R. Stacey
AU - M. V. Zanchettin
AU - V. Casasola
AU - D. Espada
AU - D. Nguyen
AU - M. Pandey-Pommier
AU - S. Thater
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/15
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.21678
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.21678
AB - Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) play a key role in galaxy evolution by regulating star formation within their host galaxies. It is therefore crucial to understand how the central supermassive black holes (SMBH) are fueled by material from the galactic disk, and how AGN feedback impacts the surrounding gas. Most information so far comes from very nearby active galaxies (z < 0.008; D < 35 Mpc), providing the best spatial resolution and revealing randomly oriented dusty molecular tori that fuel SMBHs. A facility such as ALMA2040, offering significantly higher sensitivity and better angular resolution than current ALMA, would enable progress in two fundamental areas that remain beyond the capabilities of all existing and planned observatories: (i) probing the dynamics of the material feeding the AGN down to the accretion disk in nearby galaxies; and (ii) spatially resolving the tori and circum-nuclear regions of more energetic and cosmologically significant AGN, such as local quasars (z ~ 0.1 and Lbol > 10^45 erg/s).
ER -