Related papers: Inward bound: following gas flows from nuclear spi…
(Abridged) We present a detailed study of the relation between circumnuclear dust morphology, host galaxy properties, and nuclear activity in nearby galaxies. We use our sample of 123 nearby galaxies with visible--near-infrared colormaps…
The detailed morphology of the interstellar medium (ISM) in the central kiloparsec of galaxies is controlled by pressure and gravitation. The combination of these forces shapes both circumnuclear star formation and the growth of the…
We present a detailed investigation of the incidence of circumnuclear dust structure in a large, well-matched sample of early-type galaxies with and without Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). All 34 early-type AGN hosts in our sample have…
A fundamental role is attributed to supermassive black holes (SMBH), and the feedback they generate, in the evolution of galaxies. But theoretical models trying to reproduce the relation between the SMBH mass and stellar velocity dispersion…
The mid infrared spectra of the starbursts show the 9.7$\mu m$ silicate absorption feature and strong mid infrared emission bands centered at 6.2, 7.7, and 11.3 $\mu$m. Illustrative models of the {\it active} galaxies are presented: As the…
Recent models for the inner structure of active galactic nuclei (AGN) aim at connecting the outer region of the accretion disk with the broad-line region and dusty torus through a radiatively accelerated, dusty outflow. Such an outflow not…
We analyse the 2-dimensional distribution and kinematics of the stars as well as molecular and ionised gas in the central few hundred parsecs of 5 active and 5 matched inactive galaxies. The equivalent widths of the Br-gamma line indicate…
The disks of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) are expected to be populated by numerous stars, either formed in the outer regions of the disk via gravitational instability, or captured from the nearby nuclear star cluster. Regardless of their…
The results of bar-driven mass inflow are directly observable in high-resolution HST observations of their circumnuclear regions. These observations reveal a wealth of structures dominated by dust lanes, often with a spiral-like morphology,…
Mergers between gas--rich disks and less--massive dwarf galaxies are studied using numerical simulation. As the orbit of a satellite decays through dynamical friction, the primary disk develops large-amplitude spirals in response to its…
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are powered by the accretion of disks of gas onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Stars and stellar remnants orbiting the SMBH in the nuclear star cluster (NSC) will interact with the AGN disk. Orbiters…
A stellar-mass black hole, embedded within the accretion disk of an active galactic nuclei (AGN), has the potential to accrete gas at a rate that can reach approximately $\sim 10^9$ times the Eddington limit. This study explores the…
A clear understanding of the chemical processing of matter, as it is transferred from a molecular cloud to a planetary system, depends heavily on knowledge of the physical conditions endured by gas and dust as these accrete onto a disk and…
A significant fraction of nearby galaxies show evidence of weak nuclear activity unrelated to normal stellar processes. Recent high-resolution, multiwavelength observations indicate that the bulk of this activity derives from black hole…
Recent high-resolution observations indicate that nuclear spirals are often present in the innermost few hundred parsecs of disc galaxies. My models show that nuclear spirals form naturally as a gas response to non-axisymmetry in the…
I report recent results on the kinematics of the inner few hundred parsecs (pc) around nearby active galactic nuclei (AGN) at a sampling of a few pc to a few tens of pc, using optical and near-infrared (near-IR) integral field spectroscopy…
We analyze the physical properties and infall rates of the circum-galactic gas around disks obtained in multi-resolved, cosmological, AMR simulations. At intermediate and low redshifts, disks are embedded into an extended, hot, tenuous…
Dynamical interactions between colliding spiral galaxies strongly affect the state and distribution of their interstellar gas. Observations indicate that interactions funnel gas toward the nuclei, fueling bursts of star formation and…
To examine the role of the host galaxy structure in fueling nuclear activity, we estimated gas flow rates from several kpc down to the inner few 10 pc for seven nearby spiral galaxies, selected from the NUGA sample (NUclei of GAlaxies). We…
I present an overview of the observational signatures of feeding of Active Galactic Nuclei, discussing briefly the role of interactions among galaxies on extragalactic scales, and of non-axisymmetric gravitational potentials -- such as bars…