AGN

Details. Active Galaxy Nuclei (AGN) are a unique laboratory to study gas flows, both inflows and outflows. It is in fact still unclear what is the mechanism responsible for driving gas towards the innermost region of the galaxy in order to feed the Super Massive Black Hole (SMBH). AGN-galaxy co-evolutionary models predict a phase in which the AGN energy output drives powerful winds which can shock against the surrounding gas leading to the formation of galaxy scale outflows. If and how such material acts on the host galaxy is still unclear. High resolution imaging of the gas flows in optical and NIR bands is fundamental to study the inner region of these galaxies hosting a SMBH and constrain both the fueling and the feedback on star formation and nuclear activity in nearby galaxies. SHARK-VIS offers a unique opportunity for a breakthrough in these fields with improved resolution (a factor of three better than HST) and contrast with respect to present optical instrumentation. Its images will allow us to discover and characterize AGN close pairs, to constrain the Black Hole feeding mechanism (e.g. supernovae driven winds vs gravitational asymmetries) in local Seyfert galaxies and to map, through the [OIII] emission line (5007Å), the AGN driven outflows of the ionized gas component, expanding from the central nucleus up to kpc-scales.  SHARK-VIS will allow us to study the innermost region of the galaxy down to angular scales of about 100 mas, which, for an object at z≈0.1, corresponds to d≈0.2 kpc from the nucleus. Color maps from wide-band observations and Hα images will be used to derive information on the feedback effects, by constraining the star-formation rate, age, and metallicity.