Jennifer Li - Exploring AGN physics across all scales in the era of large surveys

Active galactic nuclei (AGN), residing at the center of massive galaxies, are the ideal laboratories for studying accretion physics, black hole-galaxy-halo relations, and interstellar/circumgalactic medium (ISM/CGM) evolution. Driven by accretion onto the central supermassive black holes (SMBH), AGN can expel substantial energy into the surrounding environment through radio jets and direct heating of ISM/CGM. Recent deep imaging and spectroscopic surveys have revealed interesting connections between AGN, host galaxies, and their surrounding ISM/CGM. Meanwhile, stochastic quasar variability monitored by time-domain surveys can provide constraints on geometry and dynamics in the innermost region of AGNs. In this talk, I will highlight recent discoveries from the Cosmic Ultraviolet Baryon Survey (CUBS) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project (SDSS-RM). I will also present a flexible inference framework using simulation-based inference and deep learning to constrain accretion disk physics for the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Finally, I will discuss the importance of leveraging novel methodologies to tackle large datasets in future astronomy surveys.