The Gaseous Environment of Seyfert Galaxies

The VLA has been used to image HI in a heterogeneous sample of nine Seyferts as part of a continuing investigation of the role of galactic host gas in the triggering and fuelling of nuclear activity. Where previous single-dish observations indicated complex, poorly understood kinematics, improved angular resolution and sensitivity reveal tidal tails and intragroup gas, distinguish dwarfs from main disks and resolve non-linear gas dynamical features such as shocks in bars. Seyferts may be abnormally gas-rich, but a larger, statistically significant comparison of HI properties of normal and active galaxies is now required.