Active Galactic Nuclei Science Interest Group
(AGN SIG)

Abstract: Accreting active galactic nuclei (AGN) are powerful X-ray sources. While astronomers have been sleuthing the origins of the AGN phenomenon for decades, the most concrete proof of their supermassive black hole “monsters” was only recently obtained by the Event Horizon Telescope. This long-term path of discovery has required increasingly better spatial resolution. The irony is that the powerful X-ray emission regions near galaxy cores are still places that we cannot see directly because X-ray telescope imaging has fallen orders of magnitude behind current interferometry techniques in other wavebands. I will discuss some of the key outstanding science questions of AGN that require milli-arcsecond resolution in the X-rays and a new mission concept idea utilizing X-ray interferometry capabilities to support breakthrough science in the decades to come.