# An accreting supermassive black hole irradiating molecular gas in NGC 2110

## TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution multi-wavelength observations to show that an active galactic nucleus can locally alter the properties of molecular gas in its host galaxy, challenging previous assumptions about AGN feedback effects.

## Contribution

The paper provides new high-resolution observational evidence that AGN influence on molecular gas can be highly localized and that molecular gas can remain resilient despite energetic feedback.

## Key findings

- AGN impacts molecular gas properties locally
- Molecular gas remains resilient to AGN feedback
- Surface densities and kinematics vary smoothly across the region

## Abstract

The impact of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) on star formation has implications for our understanding of the relationships between supermassive black holes and their galaxies, as well as for the growth of galaxies over the history of the Universe. We report on a high-resolution multi-phase study of the nuclear environment in the nearby Seyfert galaxy NGC 2110 using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, and the Very Large Telescope/SINFONI. We identify a region that is markedly weak in low-excitation CO $2\rightarrow1$ emission from cold molecular gas, but appears to be filled with ionised and warm molecular gas, which indicates that the AGN is directly influencing the properties of the molecular material. Using multiple molecular gas tracers, we demonstrate that, despite the lack of CO line emission, the surface densities and kinematics of molecular gas vary smoothly across the region. Our results demonstrate that the influence of an AGN on star-forming gas can be quite localized. In contrast to widely-held theoretical expectations, we find that molecular gas remains resilient to the glare of energetic AGN feedback.