Cardiff astronomers, together with international partners, have revealed a new way to investigate how black holes feed.
An international team of astronomers has discovered a completely new way to investigate the behavior of active black holes.
They observed a sample of active black holes located at the centers of 136 galaxies and found that their emission of microwave and X-ray light was consistent, regardless of changes in the rate of consumption of surrounding galactic material such as gas clouds. I found a pattern.dust, and plasma.
Reconsidering the behavior of black holes
The research team, led by scientists at Cardiff University, says this process cannot be predicted with our current understanding of how black holes eat.
Active black holes are now understood to be inherently different depending on their appetite, and are characterized by the arrangement of their cores and the way they draw in galactic material.
However, the research team has discovered that these black holes may have more similarities than previously thought.their findings, was announced on Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letterscould provide new information about how galaxies evolve.
Amazing observations and new perspectives
Dr Ilaria Ruffa, lead author and postdoctoral fellow in Cardiff University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, said: Streams of plasma fall on them in a chaotic manner. This is true for both star systems with an appetite large enough to eat almost an entire star like our Sun in a year, and systems with a modest appetite for eating the same amount of material over 10 million years. This was quite surprising. This is because we thought that such a flow would occur only in a system with a small appetite, whereas such a flow would occur in a system with a large appetite. Black Hole It should be delivered through a more orderly and constant flow of matter (usually called an “accretion disk”). ”
The researchers investigated the cold gases surrounding active black holes and how these gases are fed in the WISDOM sample of 35 nearby galaxies captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array. This discovery was made while investigating the relationship betweenalma telescope) Telescope in Chile.
Dr. Ruffa added: “Our research suggests that the microwave light we detected may actually be coming from the plasma streams of active black holes of all kinds, and we are concerned about how these systems It’s changing our view of how it consumes matter and grows into the cosmic monsters we see today.”
Impact on black hole mass estimation
The correlation observed by the research team also provides a new way to estimate the mass of a black hole. Astronomers believe this is central to understanding the influence of black holes on the evolution of galaxies throughout the universe.
Co-author Dr Timothy Davies, reader from Cardiff University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, added: “Galaxies care very much about the black holes that reside within their cores. And perhaps they shouldn’t, because we always think of black holes as supermassive beasts that swallow everything around them.” “But they’re actually very small and light compared to the galaxy as a whole. Yet they exert a mysterious non-gravitational influence on matter tens of thousands of light years away. This is something that has puzzled us as astronomers for many years.
“Measuring the masses of black holes and how they compare to the properties of their host galaxies is the best way to understand why this mystery persists. Our new method “It opens a new window on the problem, and next-generation instruments will allow us to investigate this problem in depth over space time.”
Reference: “Fundamentals of black hole accretion at millimeter waves” Ilaria Ruffa, Timothy A Davis, Jacob S Elford, Martin Bureau, Michele Cappellari, Jindra Gensior, Daryl Haggard, Sator Iguchi, Federico Lelli, Fu-Heng Liang, Lijie Liu , Mark Sarge, Thomas G. Williams, Hengyue Zhang, December 5, 2023, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.
DOI: 10.1093/mnrasl/slad167
It is made up of researchers. Working with Cardiff Astrophysics Research Technology Hub (CHART) and international partners from across Europe, Canada and Japan, the team will further test their findings as part of the study. The new “Multi-Wavelength Observation of Nuclear Dark Object Emission Regions” (WONDER) project is led by Dr. Ruffa.