Program: GN-2006B-Q-94

We propose to obtain GMOS IFU emission-line spectroscopy of the extended Halpha gas in the inner kiloparsec of a sample of 6 nearby active galactic nuclei (AGN) hosts, selected for having dusty nuclear spirals, in order to test the hypothesis that these spirals trace the channels through which the nuclear supermassive black hole (SMBH) is being fed. This study is motivated by the results recently obtained by our group for the nearby galaxy NGC1097 (astro-ph/0602002 and Gemini press release 2006 Feb. 1): the Halpha kinematics within the inner kiloparsec, besides being dominated by circular motions in the galactic plane, shows streaming motions towards the nucleus with speeds of up to 50 km/s which approximately delineate dusty spiral arms observed in images of the nuclear region. We may have found the long sought feeding mechanism of AGN, but this result needs to be confirmed by the observation of a larger sample of AGN's, covering a range of activity type, which is the goal of the present proposal. NOTE: We are requesting time to observe 5 galaxies with Gemini North. An identical proposal is being submitted to Gemini South to observe one southern galaxy.