Deciphering AGN outflows: multiwavelength monitoring of NGC 5548

AGN outflows couple supermassive black holes to their environments. Using anambitious multiwavelength campaign on NGC 5548, (XMMNewton, HST, Swift, andoptical) we propose to achieve a new level of physical understanding for theseenigmatic winds by obtaining the deepest RGS spectrum of any AGN, allowing us todetermine the ionisation structure of the gas. Using EPIC data we will measurethe response of the outflow to continuum variations, which combined with HST/COSdata determines unambiguously the location and tomography of the outflowcomponents. Timedependent UV and Xray continuum variations will constrain thegeometry and physics close to the black hole. Our team pioneered this approach,and recently applied it successfully (12 refereed papers) to Mrk 509. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]