Does the Radiative Avalanche Fueling Work in Any Active Galactic Nuclei?

Abstract

Recently Umemura, Fukue, & Mineshige (1997) proposed the radiative avalanche fueling to active galactic nuclei; gas accretion is driven by radiation drag exerted by stellar radiation from circumnuclear starburst regions. This mechanism is also interesting in terms of starburst-AGN connections. We therefore present observational tests for the radiative avalanche fueling. Our tests, however, show that gas accretion rates driven by the radiative avalanche are significantly lower than those expected from the standard accretion theory applied for typical active galactic nuclei with the circumnuclear starburst regions. Instead we propose an alternative, possible starburst-AGN connection; a minor merger with a nucleated satellite drives circumnuclear starbursts and then leads to gas fueling onto the central engine as the merger proceeds.