Alternative criteria for classification of AGNs

Abstract

Currently, the existence of supermassive black holes in the majority of active galactic nuclei is a paradigm. We call active galactic nuclei (AGN) the nuclei that present an accretion disk surrounding the black hole , and these disks are one of the ionizing sources of the circum-nuclear gas. Based on its phenomenology, a varied class of AGNs emerges, separated by ionization parameters and the gas velocity detected. The physical explanations behind these differences remains, however, open. In many times it is not clear whether the gas excitation comes, in fact, from an AGN or from stellar processes. Finding a set of parameters that is able to distinguish this classes would be the most natural way of understanding how each class behaves. So far, the available tools have been shown dubious, even though there are several mensurable properties that were not related with each other. The purpose of the project, therefore, aims to find better diagnostic diagrams to characterize AGNs (and it already has promising preliminary results), based on statistical techniques and the measurements available on literature, with the perspective of extending and refining this study to data from the mapping DIVING3D and application in the new generation of telescopes like GMT. (AU)