Name: Oli Luiz Dors Junior

Institution: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

e-mail: olidorshotmail.com

Partner Contry: BRA

Science Meeting: Yes

User Meeting: Yes

NGO Staff Meeting: Yes

Presentation: Yes

Format: Poster

Title: Gas flows towards the LINER nucleus of NGC 6951

Co-author: Thaisa Storchi-Bergmann (1), Kambiz Fathi(2), Rogemar Riffel(3)

Co-authors' Institutions: (1)(3) Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul; (2) Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias

Abstract:

Recent studies based on HST images have shown an excess of dusty nuclear spirals among active galaxies. These structures have been suggested to be the channels to feed the nuclear supermassive black hole, what is supported also by theoretical studies. The most clear observational evidence in favor of this scenario was found for NGC 1097 by Fathi et al. (2006), who used the Integral Field Unit of the Gemini Multi-object Spectrograph (IFU-GMOS) to measure the gas kinematics using the Hα emission-line. As an extension of this work, we have used the same technique to map the gas kinematics around the LINER nucleus of the spiral galaxy NGC 6951. Similarly to what was found for NGC 1097, we find streaming motions towards the nucleus along spiral arms which are associated with dust lanes seen in HST images. This result, together with the one previously found for NGC 1097, demonstrate that nuclear spirals are indeed feeding channels to the SMBH in the nuclei of galaxies.