The Tilt between Acretion Disk and Stellar Disk

The orientations of the accretion disk of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and the stellar disk of its host galaxy are both determined by the angular momentum of their forming gas, but on very different physical environments and spatial scales. Here we show the evidence that the orientation of the stellar disk is correlated with the accretion disk by comparing the inclinations of the stellar disks of a large sample of Type 2 AGNs selected from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS, York et al. 2000) to a control galaxy sample. Given that the Type 2 AGN fraction is in the range of 70-90 percent for low luminosity AGNs as a priori, we find that the mean tilt between the accretion disk and stellar disk is similar to 30 degrees (Shen et al. 2010)