Abstract
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are believed to be powered by accretion onto a Super-Massive Black Hole (SMBH). In order to have material falling into the SMBH, angular momentum conservation requires a counterpart for this accretion that is fueling the SMBH in the AGN. Outflows might play an essential role in active galactic nuclei. They show common occurance, both in quasars (30%-40% in optically selected quasars) and Seyfert galaxies (approx. 60%), but might be ubiquitous if they subtend a small angular distance in the sky. Moreover, they bring information from the AGN inner regions, which is not accesible through other ways. Although for more than a decade models have included material outflowing from an accretion disk around a SMBH, surprisingly there is no consensus in our understanding of basic properties like the acceleration mechanism(s), launch radii, mass loss rates, terminal velocities, etc. We are involved in a program to derive basic dynamical characteristics for some well-studied individual flows, and, in particular, we are interested in High Velocity (HV) outflows since they will present unique challenges for the above mentioned theoretical models.
