Astronomers have discovered a new way to analyze active black holes, revealing that their microwave and X-ray emissions are similar across different consumption rates. This insight, which challenges previous theories, could greatly enhance our understanding of the black hole's influence on the evolution of galaxies.
Astronomers in Cardiff, in collaboration with international partners, have unveiled a new way to study how black holes reproduce.
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 at the centers of 136 galaxies and found a consistent pattern in their emission of microwave and X-ray light, regardless of their varying rates of consumption of surrounding galactic material, such as gas clouds. Dust, and plasma.
Rethinking black hole behavior
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, Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: LettersIt could provide new information about how galaxies evolve.
Surprising observations and new perspectives
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 who eat the same amount of material over 10 million years. This was very surprising because we previously thought that such fluxes should only occur in systems that eat at low rates, while in those with large appetites, Black hole It must be fed through a more organized and constant flow of material (commonly called an 'accumulation disc').”
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) of 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.”
Implications for estimating black hole masses
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 while we always think of black holes as these massive monsters that consume everything from… Around them, they are actually very small and lightweight in the context of the entire galaxy.”However, they have a mysterious non-gravitational effect on material tens of thousands of light-years away. This is something we have puzzled over as astronomers for many years.
“Measuring black hole masses, 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 with the next generation of instruments it will allow us to explore this in depth across cosmic time.”
Reference: “Fundamental level black hole accretion at millimeter wavelengths” by Ilaria Rova, Timothy A. Davis, Jacob S. Elford, Martin Pirro, Michele Cappellari, Jindra Gencior, Darrell Haggard, Satoru Iguchi, Federico Lili, Fu-Hing Liang, Lijie Liu , Mark Sarzi, Thomas J. Williams, and Hengyu Zhang, December 5, 2023, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.
doi: 10.1093/manreporter/slad167
Made up of researchers from The Cardiff Center for Astrophysical Research and Technology (CHART) and international partners from across Europe, Canada and Japan, the team plan to further test their findings as part of A new project entitled “Multi-wavelength observation of nuclear dark object emission regions” (WONDER) is led by Dr. Rova.
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