Title: Feeding and feedback in an unbiased and representative sample of AGN in the local Universe
Tutor: Francesco Tombesi, Università di Roma Tor Vergata (francesco.tombesi@roma2.infn.it)
Co-tutor: Juan Antonio Fernández Ontiveros, Instituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziale INAF-IAPS (juan.fernandez@inaf.it)
Collaborator: Luigi Spinoglio, Instituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziale INAF-IAPS (luigi.spinoglio@inaf.it)
Abstract:
Energetic feedback from star formation and accreting black holes is required to explain the low efficiency of galaxies to convert gas into stars and reconcile the observed galaxy mass distribution with that of dark matter halos. Although observational evidence of such feedback has been found for individual bright AGN launching powerful outflows, the global impact of AGN feedback on the bulk of the galaxy population is still poorly understood. The main goal of the TWIST project (Twelve micron WInd STatistics) is to determine the occurrence of molecular gas inflows and outflows at the knee of the luminosity function in Seyfert galaxies, measure the properties and physical conditions of the molecular gas, and derive the mass and energy budgets in these winds. The study is based on ALMA CO(2-1) molecular gas observations for a sample of 41 nearby galaxies, completed with Hubble imaging and 3D spectroscopy. X-ray observations will be used to characterize the nuclear environment and search for fast winds. This study is crucial to quantify the global AGN feeding and feedback and measure the time-averaged impact of these processes, which is a key unknown in theories of galaxy evolution.
Related publications: