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American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2(719), p. L148-L152, 2010

DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/719/2/l148

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Accretion Disks in Active Galactic Nuclei: Gas Supply Driven by Star Formation

Journal article published in 2010 by Jian-Min Wang, Chang-Shuo Yan, Han-Qin Gao, Chen Hu, Yan-Rong Li ORCID, and Shu Zhang
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Red circle
Preprint: archiving forbidden
Red circle
Postprint: archiving forbidden
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Self-gravitating accretion disks collapse to star-forming (SF) regions extending to the inner edge of the dusty torus in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). A full set of equations including feedback of star formation is given to describe the dynamics of the regions. We explore the role of supernova explosions (SNexp), which act to excite turbulent viscosity, in the transportation of angular momentum in the regions within 1 pc scale. We find that accretion disks with typical rates in AGNs can be driven by SNexp in the regions and metals are produced spontaneously. The present model predicts a metallicity-luminosity relationship consistent with that observed in AGNs. As relics of SF regions, a ring (or belt) consisting of old stars remains for every episode of supermassive black hole activity. We suggest that multiple stellar rings with random directions interact and form a nuclear star cluster after episodes driven by star formation.