A mid-infrared exploration of the dusty environments of active galactic
  nuclei
  We present the first results from a mid-infrared survey of local Active
Galactic Nuclei (AGN) using the CanariCam (CC) instrument on the 10.4m Gran
Telescopio Canarias (GTC). We are obtaining sub-arcsecond angular resolution
(0.3-0.6 arcsec) mid-IR imaging and spectroscopic observations of a sample of
100 local AGN, which are complemented with data taken with T-ReCS, VISIR, and
Michelle. The full sample contains approximately 140 AGN, covers nearly six
orders of magnitude in AGN luminosity, and includes low-luminosity AGN (LLAGN),
Seyfert 1s and 2s, QSO, radio galaxies, and (U)LIRGs. The main goals of this
project are: (1) to test whether the properties of the dusty tori of the AGN
Unified Model depend on the AGN type, (2) to study the nuclear star formation
activity and obscuration of local AGN, and (3) to explore the role of the dusty
torus in LLAGN.
