NBIA Seminar: Alessandra Lamastra

Supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies can launch powerful wide-angle winds which can unbind the gas from the host galaxies, offering a plausible physical origin for the black hole-galaxy co-evolution. Propagating through the galaxy, the wind should interact with the interstellar medium creating a strong shock, similar to those observed in supernovae explosions, which is able to accelerate charged particles to high energies. I will present a physical model for the gamma-ray and neutrino emission produced by relativistic particles accelerated by the shock produced by the propagation of the AGN-driven outflow observed in the molecular disk of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068. NGC 1068 is the brightest of the few non-blazar galaxies detected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and it is reported as the hottest neutrino spot in the 10 years survey data of the IceCube detector. I will show how the comparison between the predictions of the AGN wind model, and those corresponding to other models for the gamma-ray emission, like starburst or AGN jets, and the gamma-ray observations in the HE and VHE bands can be used to derive constraints on the gamma-ray and neutrino emission. I will then compare the diffuse fluxes of gamma-rays and neutrinos resulting from the superposition of the contribution of AGN winds on cosmological scales with those observed by Fermi and IceCube. Finally, I will show the prospects of the Cherenkov Telescope Array for the study of the gamma-ray emission from AGN winds.