Name: Thaisa Storchi Bergmann

Institution: Instituto de Fisica - UFRGS

e-mail: thaisa(no-spam)ufrgs.br

Partner Country: BRA

Science Meeting: Yes

User Meeting: Yes

NGO Staff Meeting: None Selected

Presentation: Yes

Format: Oral

Title: New results on AGN physics from Gemini IFU data

Abstract:

We present recent progress on the understanding of the physics around nearby Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) from measurements of gas and stellar kinematics using the GMOS and GNIRS IFUs and NIFS. With the GMOS-IFU we were able to map, for the first time, streaming motions along nuclear gas spirals towards the nucleus which, combined with previous imaging with the Hubble Space Telescope, show that nuclear spirals are channels to fuel the Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH) in AGN. With the GNIRS IFU and NIFS we have mapped the gas kinematics of the narrow-line region (NLR) of Seyfert galaxies, which is dominated by outflows related, in most cases, to radio jets. The unprecedented detail provided by the observations has allowed us to map the compression produced by the radio jets and quantify the corresponding kinetic energy deposited on the NLR. Finally, the stellar kinematics in the inner few hundred parsecs of Seyfert galaxies is found to be dominated by rotation and to show rings of low velocity dispersions related with recent star formation in half the sample studied so far. The velocity dispersion of the nuclear region has allowed us also to put constraints on the SMBH mass.