Marco Gatti: Triggering AGN activity in galaxies: galaxy interactions vs. disk instabilities
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Europe/Madrid
Seminar (IFAE)
Seminar
IFAE
Jelena Aleksic
(IFAE), Joern Lange
(IFAE Barcelona), Stefania Bordoni
(IFAE)
Description
In the last decades it has become widely accepted that Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are powered by the accretion of matter onto SuperMassive Black Holes (SMBHs), and that their evolution is tightly correlated with that of their host galaxies. However, the physical mechanisms responsible for such intense accretion episodes in the galactic nuclei still remain unclear.
A statistical study about the role of different triggering mechanisms can be performed using simulations such as semi-analytic models of galaxy formation. Two different main fueling mechanisms will be considered: a first mode where AGN activity is triggered by disk instabilities in isolated galaxies, and a second mode where the inflow onto the central SMBH is induced by galaxy interactions (i.e., galaxy mergers and fly-by events).