Modeling Dynamics in the Central Regions of Disk Galaxies

Isaac Shlosman

Published 2004-12-07Version 1

The central regions of disk galaxies are hosts to supermassive black holes whose masses show a tight correlation with the properties of surrounding stellar bulges. While the exact origin of this dependency is not clear, it can be related to the very basic properties of dark matter halos and the associated gas and stellar dynamics in the central kpc of host galaxies. In this review we discuss some of the recent developments in modeling the wide spectrum of dynamical processes which can be affiliated with the above phenomena, such as the structure of molecular tori in AGN, structure formation in triaxial halos, and dissipative and non-dissipative dynamics in nested bar systems, with a particular emphasis on decoupling of gaseous nuclear bars. We also briefly touch on the subject of fueling the nuclear starbursts and AGN.