Special Seminar Ft. Preeti Kharb

ABSTRACT:

Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are the energetic centres of all massive galaxies that are understood to be the result of mass accretion onto supermassive black holes and the release of gravitational energy. The radio-loud/radio-quiet divide in AGN is one of the enduring open questions in AGN research. It is not completely clear why only a tiny  fraction of AGN can launch radio jets that can extend up to intergalactic distances on 100s of kiloparsec scales, while the vast majority of AGN exhibit outflows that are only a few kiloparsec or less in extent. I will present research carried out by us on addressing these questions through the use of multi-scale radio observations obtained using the Very Large Array (VLA), the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT), and the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). I will also describe results from our polarization-sensitive observations from the VLA and GMRT and what the inferred magnetic field structures reveal about the different AGN classes.