Researchers at the Harvard Astrophysics Center and Black Hole Initiative (BHI) shed new light on how black holes grow over time. To do this, researchers have created a new model that allows you to check whether the dominant process is growth by accretion of matter or by joining with other black holes.
Dr. Abraham Loeb from Harvard and colleagues developed a new theoretical model that was designed to determine the main channel for the increase in the mass of black holes. This model applies to from the local universe to the one we observe from a distance of 13 billion light years.
The results of the conducted research indicate that the main growth channel depends on the mass of the black hole and the redshift. In the nearby universe, small black holes grow mainly by accretion, while very large black holes grow mainly by merging with others. In a very distant universe, the opposite is the case: small black holes grow mainly by joining together, and large ones in the process of accretion of matter.
Black holes can grow in two ways. They can absorb matter from the surrounding space or they can merge into one massive black hole - says Pacucci. We now believe that the first black holes began to form approximately with the first star population, some 13.5 billion years ago. The question is: how did these "seeds" grow, creating a very wide population of black holes that scientists now detect in the universe, from small to very large, whose glow we see from the other end of the universe? Loeb adds: We can limit their history not only by detecting light, but also by gravitational waves emitted during the joining process.
Earlier studies have shown that black holes that gain mass mainly in the accretion process swirl faster around their axis than those that grow by joining with others. Because the rotation speed, spin, fundamentally affects the way the direct environment of a black hole shines, studying the main way black holes grow helps us better determine how bright these types of sources can be. We already know that matter falls toward the black hole event horizon, and when it accelerates, it also heats up, and the gas itself begins to emit radiation - said Pacucci.
The more matter the black hole accumulates, the brighter it will be; that's why we're able to observe distant objects such as supermassive black holes.
They are billions of times more massive than the sun and are able to emit huge amounts of radiation so that we can observe them from a distance of even billions of light years. Loeb also said that even if there is no gas in their surroundings, black holes can increase their mass in the processes of connecting galaxies.
Black holes and their growth seem to play a key role in the evolution of galaxies. We believe that each galaxy has its own massive black hole that regulates the formation of stars in the galaxy, "adds Pacucci. Understanding how black holes formed, grew and evolved with galaxies is extremely important for anyone who wants to understand the universe. Our research is a significant step in this direction.
The X-ray and gravitational observatories currently emerging, such as Lynx, Athena, AXIS and LISA, will be able to detect most of the black holes studied in this work, up to a very early universe. Future observations will allow us to test the new model and thus expand our knowledge about the population of black holes throughout the history of the universe.
We've already tested our model on data for nearby black holes and have obtained very tempting results, "says Pacucci. Our goal in this study was to provide the scientific community with a theory describing the growth of black holes throughout the history of the universe. On the one hand, it will allow to better plan the observation strategies of future space telescopes, and on the other, it can be the foundation for creating other models describing other aspects of the evolution of the universe.
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