Radiation from the impact of broad-line region clouds onto AGN accretion disks

Understand

Active galactic nuclei are supermassive black holes surrounded by an accretion disk, two populations of clouds, bipolar jets, and a dusty torus.

• The clouds move in Keplerian orbits at high velocities.
• In particular, the broad-line region (BLR) clouds have velocities ranging from $1000$ to $10000$ km s$^{-1}$.
• Given the extreme proximity of these clouds to the supermassive black hole, frequent collisions with the accretion disk should occur.