Infrared (IR) interferometry has made widely recognised contributions to the way we look at the dusty environment of supermassive black holes on parsec scales. It finally provided direct evidence for orientation-dependent unification of active galaxies, however it also showed that the classical "torus" picture is oversimplified. New scientific opportunities for AGN have been suggested, and will soon be carried out, focusing on the dynamical aspects of spectrally and spatially resolved interferometry, as well as the potential to employ interferometry for cosmology. This will open interferometry to new scientific communities.
@article{arxiv.1909.08760,
title = {New active galactic nuclei science cases with interferometry: An incomplete preview},
author = {Sebastian F. Hönig and Almudena Alonso Herrero and Poshak Gandhi and Makoto Kishimoto and Joerg-Uwe Pott and Jean Surdej and Konrad R. W. Tristram},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1909.08760},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
contribution to the report on the Future of OIR Interferometry in Europe, published in Experimental Astronomy, 46, 413 (2018)