Related papers: AGN Obscuration and the Unified Model
Unified schemes of active galactic nuclei (AGN) require an obscuring dusty torus around the central source, giving rise to type 1 line spectrum for pole-on viewing and type 2 characteristics in edge-on sources. Infrared radiation at its…
These lectures take a look at how observations with adaptive optics (AO) are beginning to influence our understanding of active galactic nuclei (AGN). By focussing on a few specific topics, the aim is to highlight the different ways in…
Observations give strong support for the unification scheme of active galactic nuclei. Clumpiness of the toroidal obscuration is crucial for explaining the IR observations and has significance consequences for AGN classification: type 1 and…
The variability of active galactic nuclei (AGN) has long held the promise of shedding light on their detailed structure, and possibly other astrophysical phenonema. Different emission mechanisms lead to different patterns of variability in…
Due to the compactness active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are still unresolved with optical observations. However, structure and physical conditions of the matter in their central parts are especially important to study the processes of the…
The unified model of active galactic nuclei (AGN) includes a toroidal obscuring structure to explain the differences between Type I and Type II AGN as an effect of inclination angle. This toroidal structure is thought to be 'clumpy' as the…
The Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) combines deep HST and Spitzer imaging with the deepest Chandra/XMM observations to probe obscured AGN at higher redshifts than previous multiwavelength surveys. We present a…
Most of the local active galactic nucleus (AGN) population is obscured and much of the X-ray background originates in obscured AGNs. The contribution of obscured accretion to the growth of massive black holes is discussed here. The recent…
The presence of obscuring material (or a dusty `torus') in active galactic nuclei (AGN) is central to the unification model for AGN. Two models, the multi-population model for radio sources and the receding torus model, are capable of…
The origin of obscuration in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) is still a matter of contention. It is unclear whether obscured AGN are primarily due to line-of-sight effects, a transitory, dust-enshrouded phase in galaxy evolution, or a…
Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are believed to be obscured by an optical thick "torus" that covers a large fraction of solid angles for the nuclei. However, the physical origin of the tori and the differences in the tori among AGNs are not…
Using a simple unification model for AGN, with a fixed ratio of obscured to unobscured AGN of 3:1, we explain the X-ray, optical and infrared properties of the X-ray sources in the GOODS fields. That is, the GOODS data are consistent with…
In recent years deep X-ray and infrared surveys have provided an efficient way to find accreting supermassive black holes, otherwise known as active galactic nuclei (AGN), in the young universe. Such surveys can, unlike optical surveys,…
We present a unified model for the structure and appearance of accretion powered sources across their entire luminosity range from galactic X-ray binaries to luminous quasars, with emphasis on AGN and their phenomenology. Central to this…
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are one of the most luminous objects in the Universe, emitting powerful continuum and line emission across all wavelength bands. They represent an important link in the investigations of the galaxy evolution and…
We investigated the gas obscuration and host galaxy properties of active galactic nuclei (AGN) during the peak of cosmic accretion growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at redshift 0.8-1.8 using X-ray detected AGN with mid-infrared and…
Galaxy mergers are likely to play a role in triggering active galactic nuclei (AGN), but the conditions under which this process occurs are poorly understood. In Paper I, we constructed a sample of spatially offset X-ray AGN that represent…
We first review some basic properties of the most important classes of active galactic nuclei (AGN), including quasars, blazars, Seyfert galaxies and radio galaxies. The most commonly accepted type of scheme designed to individually unify…
The presence of an obscuring torus at pc-scale distances from the central black hole is the main ingredient for the Unified Model of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), as obscured sources are thought to be seen through this structure. However,…
We present detailed image analysis of rest-frame optical images of 235 low-redshift ($z \leq$ 0.35) type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. The high-resolution images enable us to perform rigorous…