From kpcs to the central parsec of NGC 1097: feeding star formation and
  a black hole at the same time
  A panchromatic view of the star forming ring and feeding process in the
central kpc of the galaxy NGC 1097 is presented. The assembled IR to UV images
at $\sim$10 pc resolution allow us to characterise the population of circa 250
clusters in the ring and disentangle the network of filaments of dust and gas
that enshroud and feed them. The ring is a place of intermittent star bursts
over the last 100 Myr. Four major episodes covering a proto-cluster phase of
eleven mid-IR sources at the molecular clouds core, and two (three) previous
bursts with a time separation of 20 - 30 Myr are identified.
  The extinction map of the inner few kpc resolves NGC1097's two major dust
lanes in bundles of narrow, $<$25 pc width, filaments running along the
galaxy's bar. As they approach the ring, some circularise along it, others
curve to the centre to produce a nuclear spiral. We believe these are kpc-scale
dust-gas streamers feeding the ring and the black-hole. The total mass in
clusters formed in the ring in the last 100 Myr is $< 10^7\, \rm{M_\odot}$,
i.e. $< 1\% $ of the $10^{9} M_\odot$ of molecular gas in the ring; yet, at its
current star formation rate, $\sim1.8\, \rm{M_\odot \, yr^{-1}}$, an order of
magnitude more in stellar mass should have been produced over that period. This
means that the availability of gas in the ring is not the sole star formation
driver, perhaps the rate at which dense gas accumulates in the ring is key.
