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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Revisiting the Unified Model of Active Galactic Nuclei

Hagai Netzer
- 18 Aug 2015 - 
- Vol. 53, Iss: 1, pp 365-408
TLDR
A review of recent developments related to the unified model of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can be found in this paper, where the authors focus on new ideas about the origin and properties of the central obscurer (torus) and the connection to its surroundings.
Abstract
This review describes recent developments related to the unified model of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). It focuses on new ideas about the origin and properties of the central obscurer (torus) and the connection to its surroundings. The review does not address radio unification. AGN tori must be clumpy but uncertainties about their properties persist. Today's most promising models involve disk winds of various types and hydrodynamic simulations that link the large-scale galactic disk to the inner accretion flow. Infrared (IR) studies greatly improved our understanding of the spectral energy distribution of AGNs, but they are hindered by various selection effects. X-ray samples are more complete. The dependence of the covering factor of the torus on luminosity is a basic relationship that remains unexplained. There is also much confusion regarding real type-II AGNs, which do not fit into a simple unification scheme. The most impressive recent results are due to IR interferometry, which is not in accord wit...

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Citations
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First Light for GRAVITY: Phase Referencing Optical Interferometry for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer

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TL;DR: GRAVITY as mentioned in this paper is a new instrument to coherently combine the light of the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope Interferometer to form a telescope with an equivalent 130 m diameter angular resolution and a collecting area of 200 m$^2$.
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Active galactic nuclei: what’s in a name?

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an overview of AGN multi-wavelength properties with the aim of painting their "big picture" through observations in each electromagnetic band from radio to gamma-gamma -rays as well as AGN variability.
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First light for GRAVITY: Phase referencing optical interferometry for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer

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TL;DR: GRAVITY as discussed by the authors is a new instrument to coherently combine the light of the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope Interferometer to form a telescope with an equivalent 130 m diameter angular resolution and a collecting area of 200 m2.
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BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey - V. X-ray properties of the Swift/BAT 70-month AGN catalog

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors report on the broad-band X-ray (0.3-150 keV) characteristics of these AGN, obtained by combining XMM-Newton, Swift/XRT, ASCA, Chandra, and Suzaku observations in the soft-X-ray band with 70-month averaged Swift/BAT data.
References
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Book

Astrophysics of Gaseous Nebulae and Active Galactic Nuclei

TL;DR: In this paper, a comparison of theory with observations internal dynamics of gaseous nebulae interstellar dust H II regions in the galactic context is presented. But the results are limited to the case of active galactic nuclei.
Journal ArticleDOI

Classification parameters for the emission-line spectra of extragalactic objects

TL;DR: In this paper, the merits of various emission-line intensity ratios for classifying the spectra of extragalactic objects were investigated and it was shown empirically that several combinations of easily-measured lines can be used to separate objects into one of four categories according to the principal excitation mechanism: normal H II regions, planetary nebulae, objects photoionized by a power-law continuum, and objects excited by shock-wave heating.
Journal ArticleDOI

Unified Schemes for Radio-Loud Active Galactic Nuclei

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe the radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN) classification and general properties of AGN, including radio galaxies, quasars, and blazars.
Journal ArticleDOI

Unified models for active galactic nuclei and quasars

TL;DR: The straw person model (SPM) as mentioned in this paper has been proposed to explain the orientation effects of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and quasars in the line of sight (LOS) images.
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