ASTRO SEMINAR

Speaker: Dr. Ehud Behar, Physics Department, Technion.

Place: Holcblat

Time: Wednesday, 15/Apr/2004, 14:00

Title: The splattering blender - AGNs as wind sources

Abstract

AGNs are thought of primarily as accretion sources. I will present evidence suggesting that the mass outflow rate of some AGNs can be much higher than the accretion rate. It will be shown how X-ray spectroscopic observations favor an extended (> 10 pc) geometry for these massive outflows. This geometry substantiates the unified AGN model in the X-ray regime, but it is in direct contradiction with previous findings. The proposed picture implying outflows of a few solar masses per year could mean that AGNs are a major source for metal enrichment of the IGM, perhaps comparable or even more important than starburst galaxies.