Do stellar winds play a decisive role in feeding AGN?

While the existence of a starburst-AGN connection is undisputed, there is no consensus on what the connection is. In this contribution, we begin by noting that the mechanisms which drive gas inwards in disk galaxies are generally inefficient at removing angular momentum, leading to stalled inflows....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of physics. Conference series 2012-01, Vol.372 (1), p.12046-7
Main Authors: Davies, R, Burtscher, L, Dodds-Eden, K, de Xivry, G Orban
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accretion
Active galactic nuclei
Angular momentum
Deposition
Disk galaxies
Feeding
Fluid dynamics
Phases
Physics
Star & galaxy formation
Star formation
Starbursts
Stellar winds
Toruses
Turbulence
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Summary:While the existence of a starburst-AGN connection is undisputed, there is no consensus on what the connection is. In this contribution, we begin by noting that the mechanisms which drive gas inwards in disk galaxies are generally inefficient at removing angular momentum, leading to stalled inflows. Thus, a tiered series of such processes is required to bring gas to the smallest scales, each of which on its own may not correlate with the presence of an AGN. Similarly, each may be associated with a starburst event, making it important to discriminate between 'circumnuclear' and 'nuclear' star formation. In this contribution, we show that stellar feedback on scales of tens of parsecs plays a critical role in first hindering and then helping accretion. We argue that it is only after the initial turbulent phases of a starburst that gas from slow stellar winds can accrete efficiently to smaller scales. This would imply that the properties of the obscuring torus are directly coupled to star formation and that the torus must be a complex dynamical entity. We finish by remarking on other contexts where similar processes appear to be at work.
ISSN:1742-6596
1742-6588
1742-6596
DOI:10.1088/1742-6596/372/1/012046