Stochastic nature of feedback processes in galaxies
Joss Bland-Hawthorn (University of Sydney)
The Galactic Centre provides us with a front-row seat on powerful AGN activity over the last 100 Myr. Recent observations provide new insights, in particular, that the circumnuclear gas is unstable and leads to stochastic accretion onto the accretion disk. More remarkably, the duration time of an Eddington accretion event can be as short as 1 Myr having declined by ten orders of magnitude within that time frame. Much of this activity would be invisible in galaxies beyond the Local Group. Feedback and recycling of gas may be energetically important but largely invisible with current technologies. We review this evidence and discuss its importance in the context of galaxy evolution.
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