Program: GN-2011A-Q-85

We propose GMOS IFU emission-line spectroscopy of the extended Halpha gas in the inner kiloparsec of 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 is being fed. This study is motivated by the recent results obtained by our group for three nearby galaxies with LINER nuclei: NGC1097, NGC6951 and M81. In these galaxies, the Halpha kinematics within the inner kiloparsec shows streaming motions towards the nucleus with speeds of the order of 50 km/s. This result suggests that dusty nuclear spirals do trace inflows, but this needs to be confirmed in a larger sample of AGN's, including a broader range of activity types. As the next step towards this goal, we propose to use Gemini/GMOS-IFU to map the gas kinematics in three nearby Seyfert galaxies: NGC3607, NGC4477 and NGC4639, all three having nuclear spirals and being more active than the LINERs so far observed. As a long range goal, we aim to characterise black hole accretion and growth in a statistically significant sample of galaxies, spanning a range of nuclear power.