A team of Princeton astrophysicists has discovered that the energy Black Hole M87* pushes a long-standing debate in this field outward rather than inward.
One thing everyone knows about black holes is that absolutely everything nearby is sucked into them.
largely Everything turned out.
“Although black holes are defined as objects from which nothing can escape, one of the surprising predictions of Einstein’s theory of relativity is that black holes can actually lose energy.” , says astrophysicist Elliot Quataert, Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy at Princeton University. Foundation Class of 1897. “They can rotate, but just as a top slows down over time and loses energy in its rotation, a spinning black hole can also lose energy to its surroundings.”
Scientists have widely accepted this model since the 1970s. They knew that magnetic fields could extract energy from rotating black holes, but they didn’t know how.
A team of Princeton astrophysicists has finally determined that energy near the event horizon of black hole M87* is pushing outward rather than inward. (M87 is the name of the galaxy, Messier 87, so the black hole at its center is designated his M87*.) The researchers also verified the prediction that black holes lose rotational energy, Quatert said he also created a method to establish that prediction. That energy creates “incredibly powerful outflows that we call jets.”
An animation showing how the magnetic field across a black hole’s event horizon twists as the black hole spins faster. A black hole that spins faster will “wind up” its magnetic field faster, causing the black hole to lose more energy to its surroundings. A team of Princeton astrophysicists observed the winding up of magnetic field lines in images of linearly polarized light from a black hole from the Event Horizon telescope.Credit: Video by George Wong, Institute for Advanced Study and princeton university
These energy draining jets are “basically like a million.light year“It’s a long Jedi lightsaber,” said Aleksandr Lupsaska, a former postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University. milky way Galaxy.
Their research results recently of astrophysical journal. Andrew Chael, associate research scientist in astrophysics, is the paper’s lead author. Both he and his co-author George Wong event horizon telescope He is part of the team and has played a key role in developing the models used to interpret black holes. Chael, Wong, Lupsasca, and Quataert all Princeton Gravity Initiative.
The researchers credited Chael with providing the key insight at the heart of the new paper: the direction in which magnetic field lines spiral reveals the direction of energy flow. From there, “the rest kind of fell into place,” Quatart said.
“If you took the Earth, turned everything into TNT, and detonated it 1,000 times a second for millions of years, that’s the amount of energy you’d get from M87,” said Wong. Member of the Princeton Gravity Initiative and the Institute for Advanced Study.
Scientists have known for decades that when a black hole starts spinning, it drags along the fabric of space-time. The magnetic field lines penetrating the black hole are dragged, slowing down its rotation and leading to the release of energy.
“Our new and sharp prediction is that whenever you look at an astrophysical black hole, if there are magnetic field lines attached to it, there will be energy transfer. There will be a truly tremendous amount of energy transfer. ” said Lupsaska, a former associate researcher. Mr. Princeton is currently an assistant professor of physics and mathematics at Vanderbilt University. 2024 New Horizons Prize in Physics Awarded the Breakthrough Prize Foundation for black hole research.
Although the energy flow near M87*’s event horizon is flowing outward, the researchers said the energy flow could theoretically be directed inward to another black hole. They are confident in the connection between the energy flow and the direction of magnetic field lines, and their prediction that the energy flow comes from a black hole remains theoretical.next generationEvent Horizon Telescope.
Over the past year and a half, black hole researchers from around the world have proposed specifications for future devices, Wong said. “Papers like ours can play an important role in determining what we need. I think these are incredibly exciting times.”
The four researchers write in their paper that while the evidence does lean in that direction, they have not conclusively shown that the black hole’s rotation “really powers the extragalactic jet.” he emphasized. Although the energy levels shown in their model were commensurate with what the jet needed, they could not rule out the possibility that the jet could be powered by spinning. plasma outside the black hole. “I think it’s very likely that the black hole is powering the jet, but we can’t prove it,” Lupsaska said. “still.”
References: “Black Hole Polarimetry I. Characteristics of Electromagnetic Energy Extraction” by Andrew Chael, Alexandru Lupsasca, George N. Wong, and Eliot Quataert, November 14, 2023. astrophysical journal.
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/acf92d
This research was supported by the Princeton Gravity Initiative, a Taplin Fellowship, the National Science Foundation (grant 2307888), and a Simons Foundation Investigator Award.