Supermassive black hole feeding and feedback observed on sub-parsec scales
Abstract
Active galaxies contain a supermassive black hole at their center, which grows by accreting matter from the surrounding galaxy. The accretion process in the central ~10 parsecs has not been directly resolved in previous observations, due to the small apparent angular sizes involved. We observed the active nucleus of the Circinus Galaxy using sub-millimeter interferometry. A dense inflow of molecular gas is evident on sub-parsec scales. We calculate that less than 3% of this inflow is accreted by the black hole, with the rest being ejected by multiphase outflows, providing feedback to the host galaxy. The observations also reveal a dense gas disk surrounding the inflow; the disk is gravitationally unstable which drives the accretion into the central ~1 parsec.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2305.03993,
title = {Supermassive black hole feeding and feedback observed on sub-parsec scales},
author = {Takuma Izumi and Keiichi Wada and Masatoshi Imanishi and Kouichiro Nakanishi and Kotaro Kohno and Yuki Kudoh and Taiki Kawamuro and Shunsuke Baba and Naoki Matsumoto and Yutaka Fujita and Konrad R. W. Tristram},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.03993},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
First release on Nov 3, 2023 in Science. 32 pages in one column = Main (13 pages, 4 figures) + Supplement (19 pages, 9 figures + 2 tables). This is the accepted version after peer review