Description
The unified model of AGN depicts a system with an accreting supermassive black hole, a thin equatorial accretion disk, an ionised wind in the polar regions, and an equatorial dusty torus. This geometry is invoked to account for the dichotomy of Type 1 and Type 2 AGN through viewing angle alone by obscuration of the torus, and -- while these structures are on scales which were not resolvable until recently -- fitting radiative transfer models to the spectral energy distribution has supported this model. Recent advances in interferometry have produced observations which challenge the unified model, detecting dust structures elongated in the polar direction, and now JWST provides the resolution required to image these structures directly. The Galactic Activity, Torus, and Outflow Survey (GATOS) has imaged 8 nearby Seyfert galaxies with mid-infrared (MIR) broadband filters on JWST, and some of the sample show MIR polar structures -- but can we trust that this MIR emission is truly from dust, or just from ionised gas? This work highlights the issue of emission line contamination in the JWST broadband filters, presents and tests a novel process for quantifying and accounting for this effect, and shows that the polar MIR emission persists, and presents work characterising the physical properties of the dust.
