Prof. Leah Morabito

It has been decades since active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback was shown to be a key ingredient in cosmological simulations to reproduce the observed Universe. However, we still lack an understanding of how accretion onto super-massive black holes ultimately impacts galaxy evolution. Advances in this science area often focus on either the process of accretion or the process of AGN feedback, without linking the two together. One significant way to resolve this issue is via high-resolution, low radio-frequency observations of AGN. To this end, for the last decade I have pioneered advanced techniques and led the group producing sub-arcsecond resolution images with the International LOFAR Telescope (ILT) at frequencies below 200 MHz over large fields of view. In this talk, I will detail how these new and powerful observations are able to distinguish between radio emission from AGN activity and radio emission from star formation. With the benefit of wide fields of view (and corresponding sample sizes), we are now producing AGN samples two orders of magnitude larger than possible with VLBI at GHz frequencies. I will show how identifying AGN activity in large samples will lead to a better understanding of how accretion and feedback are connected. I will finish by detailing how this field will evolve over the coming decade with the advancement of the ILT and the radio astronomy landscape.