Program: GN-2012B-Q-45

Theoretical studies attribute a fundamental role for nuclear supermassive black holes, via their feeding and the feedback they generate, in the evolution of galaxies. A number of prescriptions for the physical processes involved (e.g. gas inflows and outflows) have been assumed in order to reproduce the so-called M_BH-sigma relation. However, these prescriptions are not well constrained and are sometimes even at odds with observations of active galaxies (where these processes occur). We propose to constrain the relevant physical processes in a systematic way using integral field spectroscopic observations in the near-IR (J, H and K bands) with the instrument NIFS+ALTAIR of a well-defined sample of nearby 22 Seyfert galaxies. Our sample covers a broad range of luminosities and their proximity allows us to resolve scales of a few to tens of parsecs, ideal to resolve circum-nuclear inflows and outflows. Our goal is to homogeneously quantify both the feeding (inflows and also the young stellar population contribution) and feeedback processes (outflows), and look for correlations with the Seyfert type and power. For the next semester, we propose such observations for the galaxies Mrk 607 and Mrk 620.