Galactic Centers as tracers of Galaxy Evolution

This workshop aims to take a step forward in unveiling the connection between galactic central regions, where small stellar and gaseous structures coexist with massive black holes (MBHs), and the evolution of galaxies at a global scale. We will adopt a multiscale approach gathering together an interdisciplinary astronomical community, with research expertise on galaxy evolution at different spatial scales and technical expertise on different cutting-edge techniques, instruments and computing tools. This workshop will provide us with a complete view of the current knowledge of galactic centers. In particular, we will discuss the connection channels between MBHs and nuclear structures (such as nuclear star clusters, nuclear disks and rings, and nuclear bars and spirals), all coexisting in the central regions of galaxies, and evolution processes at a global scale, such as gas inflows and outflows and galaxy-galaxy interactions. Special focus will be dedicated to MBH seeding, formation and growth, their feedback and active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and their impact on the formation mechanisms of nuclear structures, without missing a global-galaxy perspective. Participants from these different fields will bring us the state of the art in numerical simulations, as well as cutting-edge observational techniques including black-hole imaging and gravitational-wave detection. We aim to set up plans to exploit the networking connections achieved during the workshop with future collaborations and projects, and to prepare large shared proposals for future telescopes such as the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT).