Experimental Indicators of Accretion Processes in Active Galactic Nuclei

TL;DR

This paper reviews observational indicators across the electromagnetic spectrum that reveal accretion processes in Active Galactic Nuclei, including recent high-resolution studies of the Galactic Center and Sagittarius A*.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive summary of experimental indicators of accretion in AGN and presents recent observational results on the Galactic Center, enhancing understanding of black hole accretion mechanisms.

Findings

Sagittarius A* exhibits a well-ordered geometry and emission processes.

Accretion indicators are consistent across multiple wavelengths.

Recent observations improve understanding of star formation near supermassive black holes.

Abstract

Bright Active Galactic Nuclei are powered by accretion of mass onto the super massive black holes at the centers of the host galaxies. For fainter objects star formation may significantly contribute to the luminosity. We summarize experimental indicators of the accretion processes in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), i.e., observable activity indicators that allow us to conclude on the nature of accretion. The Galactic Center is the closest galactic nucleus that can be studied with unprecedented angular resolution and sensitivity. Therefore, here we also include the presentation of recent observational results on Sagittarius A* and the conditions for star formation in the central stellar cluster. We cover results across the electromagnetic spectrum and find that the Sagittarius A* (SgrA*) system is well ordered with respect to its geometrical orientation and its emission processes of which we assume to reflect the accretion process onto the super massive black hole.