Our initial sample residuals (gray shaded area) and BASS sources (white area) from the best-fit mmFP, plotted as a function of the SMBH mass measurement method. “Dyn” refers to dynamic mass measurements, “Ⴓ★“For estimates from MBosnia and Herzegovina – C★ Van den Bosch (2016), “Hα/Hβ” relationship with the bold method and “Reverb” with echo mapping. Each set of data points is represented by a violin that describes the underlying distribution. The number of sources in mmFP which MBosnia and Herzegovina It is estimated using that specific method shown above each violin. In each case, the blue horizontal lines indicate the 18th, 50th, and 85th percentiles of the distribution. credit: arXiv (2023). doi: 10.48550/arxiv.2307.13872
An international team of astronomers has discovered a completely new way to explore how active black holes behave when they eat.
A sample of active black holes at the center of 136 galaxies was found to shine in microwave and X-ray light in the same way, regardless of their appetite for surrounding galactic matter, such as gaseous clouds of dust and plasma.
The team, led by scientists at Cardiff University, says this process was not predicted by our current understanding of how black holes eat.
Currently understood to be fundamentally different depending on their appetites, active black holes are distinguished by the design of their cores and the way they map onto galactic matter.
However, the team found that these black holes may have more similarities than previously thought.
Their findings, forthcoming in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: LettersIt could provide new information about how galaxies evolve.
Lead author Dr Ilaria Rova, a postdoctoral research associate at Cardiff University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, said: ‘The microwave and Streams of plasma fall into it in an unorganized manner.”
“This is the case in both systems that have enormous appetites, eating nearly an entire star like our Sun annually, and those with smaller appetites that eat the same amount of material over 10 million years.”
“This was very surprising because we had previously thought that such flows should only occur in systems that eat at low rates, whereas in systems with large appetites, the black hole should be fed by a more organized and constant flow of matter (commonly called the ‘accretion disk’) ”
The team made the discovery while investigating the relationship between cold gas around active black holes and how they feed into the WISDOM sample of 35 nearby galaxies captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescopes in Chile.
Dr Roffa added: “Our study suggests that the microwave light we detect may actually come from these streams of plasma in all kinds of active black holes, changing our view of how these systems consume matter and grow into the cosmic monsters we see today.” “.
The correlations observed by the team also provide a new way to estimate the masses of black holes, something astronomers believe is key to understanding their influence on the evolution of galaxies across the universe.
Co-author Dr Timothy Davies, a reader in Cardiff University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, added: “Galaxies care a lot about the black holes inside their centres. And maybe they shouldn’t, because we always think about black.” “Holes are such massive monsters that consume everything around them, they’re actually very small and lightweight in the context of an entire galaxy.”
“However, they have a mysterious non-gravitational effect 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 comparing them to the properties of their host galaxies is the best way to begin to understand why this mystery persists. Our new method opens a new window on this problem, and together with the next generation of instruments will allow us to explore this deeply across cosmic time.”
Their paper will be published titled “Fundamental level black hole accretion at millimeter wavelengths.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: LettersThe results are currently available on arXiv Advance print server.
more information:
Ilaria Rova et al., Fundamental level of black hole accretion at millimeter wavelengths, arXiv (2023). doi: 10.48550/arxiv.2307.13872
Provided by Cardiff University
the quote: Afterglow Interpretation of a Black Hole Breakfast (2023, December 4) Retrieved December 4, 2023 from https://phys.org/news/2023-12-afterglow-black-hole-breakfast.html
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