Berlin 2005 – scientific programme

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EP: Extraterrestrische Physik

EP 20: Poster-Session III: Astrophysik

EP 20.6: Poster

Tuesday, March 8, 2005, 09:00–19:00, Poster TU BH

Infrared emission from the dusty veil around active galactic nuclei — •Thomas Beckert¹, Gerd Weigelt¹, and Wolfgang J. Duschl² — ¹Max-Planck Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn — ²Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik, Universität Heidelberg, Albert-Ueberle-Str. 2, 69120 Heidelberg

Based on a model for a clumpy and dusty torus surrounding supermassive black holes we discuss the infrared emission of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Both dynamical arguments and the weakness of spectral features in the infrared suggest that dust in the torus is organized in distinct clouds. The optical depth of individual clouds is so large that the clumpiness of the torus is important for the shape of the SED and the appearance of AGN in high resolution speckle imaging and interferometric measurements in the infrared. The underlying dynamical model requires mass accretion rates in the torus on parsec-scales above the Eddington limit for the black hole. Our scenario, which includes strong outflows along the symmetry axis and feeding of the central accretion disk together with the torus model, will be tested in nearby sources like NGC 1068.