Does the Radiative Avalanche Fueling Work in Any Active Galactic Nuclei ?

Abstract

Recently Umemura, Fukue, & Mineshige (1997) proposed the radiative avalanche fueling to active galactic nuclei; gas accretion is driven by radiation drag exerted by stellar radiation from circumnuclear starburst regions. This mechanism is also interesting in terms of starburst-AGN connections. We therefore present observational tests for the radiative avalanche fueling. Our tests, however, show that gas accretion rates driven by the radiative avalanche are significantly lower than those expected from the standard accretion theory applied for typical active galactic nuclei with the circumnuclear starburst regions. Instead we propose an alternative, possible starburst-AGN connection; a minor merger with a nucleated satellite drives circumnuclear starbursts and then leads to gas fueling onto the central engine as the merger proceeds.

12 pages

Cited by in corpus (7)

• The Minor-Merger Driven Nuclear Activity in Seyfert Galaxies: A Step toward the Simple Unified Formation Mechanism of Active Galactic Nuclei in the Local Universe
• Optical Versus Mid-Infrared Spectroscopic Classification of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies
• A Multiple Merger Model for the Origin of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies
• HCG 16 Revisited: Clues About Galaxy Evolution in Groups
• Gas Shepherding by an Infalling Satellite
• Morphological evidence for a past minor merger in the Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068
• Dynamical Mass of Type 2 Seyfert Nuclei