Past, present and Future of the Scaling Relations of Galaxies and Active Galactic Nuclei

TL;DR

This review explores the origins, evolution, and physical mechanisms behind the scaling relations of galaxies and AGN, highlighting progress and future directions in understanding galaxy formation and AGN phenomena.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the history, current models, and future prospects for studying the scaling relations of galaxies and AGN, emphasizing their physical significance.

Findings

Current models partially reproduce observed scaling relations.

Scaling relations reveal complexities in galaxy formation.

Uncertainties remain in understanding AGN phenomena.

Abstract

We review the properties of the established Scaling Relations (SRs) of galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGN), focusing on their origin and expected evolution back in time, providing a short history of the most important progresses obtained up to now and discussing the possible future studies. We also try to connect the observed SRs with the physical mechanisms behind them, examining to what extent current models reproduce the observational data. The emerging picture clarifies the complexity intrinsic to the galaxy formation and evolution process as well as the basic uncertainties still affecting our knowledge of the AGN phenomenon. At the same time, however, it suggests that the detailed analysis of the SRs can profitably contribute to our understanding of galaxies and AGN.