Black hole's heart still beating

Date:
June 10, 2020
Source:
Durham University
Summary:
The first confirmed heartbeat of a supermassive black hole is
still going strong more than ten years after first being observed.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
The first confirmed heartbeat of a supermassive black hole is still
going strong more than ten years after first being observed.


========================================================================== X-ray satellite observations spotted the repeated beat after its signal
had been blocked by our Sun for a number of years.

Astronomers say this is the most long lived heartbeat ever seen in a
black hole and tells us more about the size and structure close to its
event horizon - - the space around a black hole from which nothing,
including light, can escape.

The research, by the National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy
of Sciences, China, and Durham University, UK, appears in the journal
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The black hole's heartbeat was first detected in 2007 at the centre of
a galaxy called RE J1034+396 which is approximately 600 million light
years from Earth.

The signal from this galactic giant repeated every hour and this behaviour
was seen in several snapshots taken before satellite observations were
blocked by our Sun in 2011.



==========================================================================
In 2018 the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray satellite was able
to finally re-observe the black hole and to scientists' amazement the
same repeated heartbeat could still be seen.

Matter falling on to a supermassive black hole as it feeds from the
accretion disc of material surrounding it releases an enormous amount
of power from a comparatively tiny region of space, but this is rarely
seen as a specific repeatable pattern like a heartbeat.

The time between beats can tell us about the size and structure of the
matter close to the black hole's event horizon.

Professor Chris Done, in Durham University's Centre for Extragalactic
Astronomy collaborated on the findings with colleague Professor Martin
Ward, Temple Chevallier Chair of Astronomy.

Professor Done said: "The main idea for how this heartbeat is formed is
that the inner parts of the accretion disc are expanding and contracting.



==========================================================================
"The only other system we know which seems to do the same thing is a
100,000 times smaller stellar-mass black hole in our Milky Way, fed
by a binary companion star, with correspondingly smaller luminosities
and timescales.

"This shows us that simple scalings with black hole mass work even for
the rarest types of behaviour." Lead author Dr Chichuan Jin of the
National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said:
"This heartbeat is amazing! "It proves that such signals arising from
a supermassive black hole can be very strong and persistent. It also
provides the best opportunity for scientists to further investigate
the nature and origin of this heartbeat signal." The next step in
the research is to perform a comprehensive analysis of this intriguing
signal, and compare it with the behaviour of stellar-mass black holes
in our Milky Way.

The research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China, the Strategic Pioneer Program on Space Science, Chinese Academy
of Sciences, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Durham_University. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Martin Ward, Chris Done, Chichuan Jin. Reobserving the NLS1
galaxy RE
J1034 396 - I. The long-term, recurrent X-ray QPO with a high
significance. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
2020; 495 (4): 3538 DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa1356 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200610094108.htm

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