Prospects for AGN studies with ALMA

TL;DR

This paper introduces mm/submm extragalactic astronomy with a focus on AGN studies, highlighting ALMA's capabilities and potential scientific contributions in understanding active galactic nuclei at various redshifts.

Contribution

It provides an overview of current mm/submm observations, describes ALMA's capabilities, and discusses future scientific goals for AGN research using ALMA.

Findings

Current mm/submm observations have advanced AGN understanding.

ALMA's capabilities will enable new insights into AGN at high redshift.

The paper outlines future scientific goals for AGN studies with ALMA.

Abstract

These lecture notes provide an introduction to mm/submm extragalactic astronomy, focused on AGN studies, with the final goal of preparing students to their future exploitation of the ALMA capabilities. I first provide an overview of the current results obtained through mm/submm observations of galaxies and AGNs, both local and at high redshift. Then I summarize the main mm/submm facilities that are currently available. ALMA is then presented with a general description and by providing some details on its observing capabilities. Finally, I discuss some of the scientific goals that will be achievable with ALMA in extragalactic astronomy, and for AGN studies in particular.