Outflows, feedback and the central engines of active galactic nuclei
Principal contact: J. Reeves (jnr@astro.keele.ac.uk )
Organisers: P. O'Brien (Leicester, UK), J. Reeves (Keele, UK), C. Tadhunter (Sheffield, UK), M. Ward (Durham, UK)
The subject of AGN outflows has assumed increased importance and has generated a high level of interest over the past few years. Outflows range from powerful radio jets, to relativistic accretion disk winds and low velocity parsec scale dusty outflows. The outflows provide a link between the AGN central engine, its host galaxy and the surrounding intergalactic medium and can provide a crucial feedback mechanism between nuclear activity and large-scale star formation. Such a feedback process must have been important during galaxy growth in the early Universe.
This session will combine both theory and observations of AGN outflows, with the aim to move towards a self-consistent picture of this phenomenon. This includes an understanding of how outflows are launched, why some AGN appear to have powerful winds whilst others do not and ultimately how the winds interact with the AGN host galaxy. We suggest that the topic of these sessions will be of interest to the wider AGN research community, as well as those working on galaxy evolution. Other topics relating to the fundamental properties of central engines of AGN, e.g. emission mechanisms, variability, AGN unification, will also be welcomed in this session.
