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Artist’s rendering of the rotating corona above a black hole’s accretion disk. New research reveals an ancient black hole whose corona may have helped it break some major cosmic rules. |Image credit: NASA/Aurore Simonnet (Sonoma State University)
Surprisingly hungry black hole From the very beginning of the universe, it broke two big rules: Not only did it exceed the “speed limit” for black hole growth, but it also produced extreme X-ray and radio wave emissions – two features that are not expected to coexist.
The object is a quasar named ID830, an extremely bright and active supermassive black hole (SMBH) that ejects huge streams of radiation from its poles. Still exudes a strong X-ray The emissions are produced by incoming material spinning at nearly the speed of light in its dark maw.
The ID830 is incredibly large. It weighed 440 million solar masses about 12 billion years ago, when the universe was about 15% of its current age. This makes its mass ratio Sagittarius A*a supermassive black hole located at the center of our galaxy.
How could such a violation of the rules possibly occur? Published in ” The Astrophysical Journalan international team of researchers looked at ID830 at multiple wavelengths to find out.
Even black holes have limits
Black holes are the most voracious eaters in the universe, but even monsters have feeding limits. As they attract gas and dust, this material accumulates in spinning accretion disks. Gravity pulls material from the disk into the black hole, but the falling material creates radiation pressure that pushes outward and prevents more material from falling in. Black holes are therefore limited by a self-regulating process called the Eddington limit.
Artist’s rendering of a black hole with its rotating accretion disk, bright corona and jets. |Image source: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
However, black holes can temporarily bypass this limit and experience rapid growth at a certain rate. Super Eddington limit. Researchers have proposed a variety of mechanisms to cope with this cosmic gluttony. For example, “it is entirely possible for a black hole to consume matter at a rate exceeding the Eddington limit for a short period of time before radiation pressure increases to limit the accretion rate,” Anthony TaylorAn astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin who was not involved in the study told LiveScience via email.
Alternatively, a black hole could consume material in a disk around its equator, while outward radiation pressure pushes material away from its poles. “In this case, the radiation pressure does not directly impede the inflow of material, allowing the Eddington limit to be exceeded,” Taylor added. “There are a variety of geometries that can achieve this!”
Super-Eddingtonian mechanics may help reconcile models of the growth of supermassive black holes with the expanding catalog of observations of the early universe. With its excellent infrared sensitivity, James Webb Space Telescope Revealed that small and medium-sized enterprises grow surprisingly fast and surprisingly early, defy everyone’s expectations.
So how do small and medium-sized families become so obese so quickly? some scientists suggest Clans III StarThe collapse of the first and largest star in the history of the universe produced a black hole “seed” of 1,000 times the mass of the sun or more.
But even these giant seeds need to be fed beyond the Eddington limit 650 million years to some of the observed dimensions. This feat seemed unfeasible for a number of reasons, including the massive amounts of gas required to sustain a vortex for such a long time.
Accelerate the growth of black holes
The researchers calculated ID830’s growth rate by measuring its brightness at ultraviolet (UV) and X-ray wavelengths. Its X-ray brightness indicates that ID830 is accreting mass at about 13 times the Eddington limit, due to sudden influx of gas This may have occurred as ID830 shredded and engulfed an object that was too close.
This chart shows ID830’s unique brightness compared to previously observed objects. The solid line represents the Eddington limit, while the dashed line represents the black hole’s feeding rate 10 times higher than the Eddington limit. |Image source: NAOJ
“For a supermassive black hole as massive as ID830, this would require not an ordinary (main sequence) star, but a more massive giant star or a giant gas cloud,” study co-authors said. Sakiko Obuchiobservational astronomers at Waseda University in Tokyo told LiveScience via email. This Super-Eddingtonian phase is likely to be very short-lived, as “this transitional phase is expected to last approximately 300 years,” Obuchi added.
The ID830 also displays both radio and X-ray emissions. These two features are not expected to coexist, especially since super-Eddington accretion is thought to suppress this emission. “This unexpected combination hints at physical mechanisms that are not fully captured by current models of extreme accretion and jet emission,” the researchers said in a report. statement.
So when ID830 emits a large radio jet, its X-ray emission appears to originate from a structure called the corona, which is created by the intense magnetic field of the accretion disk, creating a thin but billion-degree turbulent cloud of turbocharged particles. These particles orbit the black hole at nearly the speed of light, and under what circumstances NASA appeals “One of the most extreme physical environments in the universe.”
A framework for early galaxy evolution
Taken together, ID830’s irregularities suggest that it is in a rare transitional phase of excessive consumption and excretion. This incredible burst of feed energizes its jets and corona, causing ID830 to shine brightly at multiple wavelengths as it spews out excess radiation.
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Additionally, the researchers say quasars like ID830 may be unexpectedly common, based on ultraviolet brightness analyses. Models predict that only about 10% of quasars have spectacular radio jets, but these energetic objects may have been much more abundant in the early universe than previously predicted.
Most importantly, ID830 also shows how the SMBH regulated galaxy growth in the early universe. When a black hole devours matter beyond the Eddington limit, the resulting radiation energy can heat the matter and disperse it throughout the black hole. interstellar medium – gas between stars – inhibits star formation. Therefore, ancient supermassive black holes like ID830 could become massive at the expense of their host galaxies.
