Supermassive Black Holes

2019 ◽  
pp. 151-158
Author(s):  
Nicholas Mee

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is aiming to image the event horizon of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. Andrea Ghez has mapped out the orbits of stars around this supermassive black hole and deduced it has a mass of four million Suns. An even bigger supermassive black hole of six billion solar masses lies at the centre of the M87 Galaxy. Shep Doeleman has marshalled several of the world’s radio telescopes to form the EHT with the aim of imaging the event horizons of these black holes.

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (S351) ◽  
pp. 80-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melvyn B. Davies ◽  
Abbas Askar ◽  
Ross P. Church

AbstractSupermassive black holes are found in most galactic nuclei. A large fraction of these nuclei also contain a nuclear stellar cluster surrounding the black hole. Here we consider the idea that the nuclear stellar cluster formed first and that the supermassive black hole grew later. In particular we consider the merger of three stellar clusters to form a nuclear stellar cluster, where some of these clusters contain a single intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH). In the cases where multiple clusters contain IMBHs, we discuss whether the black holes are likely to merge and whether such mergers are likely to result in the ejection of the merged black hole from the nuclear stellar cluster. In some cases, no supermassive black hole will form as any merger product is not retained. This is a natural pathway to explain those galactic nuclei that contain a nuclear stellar cluster but apparently lack a supermassive black hole; M33 being a nearby example. Alternatively, if an IMBH merger product is retained within the nuclear stellar cluster, it may subsequently grow, e.g. via the tidal disruption of stars, to form a supermassive black hole.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (10) ◽  
pp. 2050070
Author(s):  
Ujjal Debnath

We study the four-dimensional (i) modified Bardeen black hole, (ii) modified Hayward black hole, (iii) charged regular black hole and (iv) magnetically charged regular black hole. For modified Bardeen black hole and modified Hayward black hole, we found only one horizon (event horizon) and then we found some thermodynamic quantities like the entropy, surface area, irreducible mass, temperature, Komar energy and specific heat capacity on the event horizon. We here study the bounds of the above thermodynamic quantities for these black holes on the event horizon. Then, we examine the thermodynamics stability of the black holes with some conditions. Next, we studied the charged regular black hole and magnetically charged regular black hole and found two horizons (Cauchy and event horizons) of these black holes. Then, we found the entropy, surface area, irreducible mass, temperature, Komar energy and specific heat capacity on the Cauchy and event horizons. Then, we get some conditions for thermodynamic stability/instability of the black holes. We found the radius of the extremal horizon and Christodoulou–Ruffiini mass and then analyze the above thermodynamic quantities on the extremal horizon. We calculate the sum/subtraction, product, division and sum/subtraction of inverse of surface areas, entropies, irreducible masses, temperatures, Komar energies and specific heat capacities on both the horizons. From these, we found the bounds of the above quantities on the horizons.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (02n03) ◽  
pp. 2040054
Author(s):  
M. Yu. Piotrovich ◽  
V. L. Afanasiev ◽  
S. D. Buliga ◽  
T. M. Natsvlishvili

Based on spectropolarimetry for a number of active galactic nuclei in Seyfert 1 type galaxies observed with the 6-m BTA telescope, we have estimated the spins of the supermassive black holes at the centers of these galaxies. We have determined the spins based on the standard Shakura-Sunyaev accretion disk model. More than 70% of the investigated active galactic nuclei are shown to have Kerr supermassive black holes with a dimensionless spin greater than 0.9.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cosimo Bambi

Black holes have the peculiar and intriguing property of having an event horizon, a one-way membrane causally separating their internal region from the rest of the Universe. Today, astrophysical observations provide some evidence for the existence of event horizons in astrophysical black hole candidates. In this short paper, I compare the constraint we can infer from the nonobservation of electromagnetic radiation from the putative surface of these objects with the bound coming from the ergoregion instability, pointing out the respective assumptions and limitations.


Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 511
Author(s):  
Claudio Cremaschini ◽  
Massimo Tessarotto

A new type of quantum correction to the structure of classical black holes is investigated. This concerns the physics of event horizons induced by the occurrence of stochastic quantum gravitational fields. The theoretical framework is provided by the theory of manifestly covariant quantum gravity and the related prediction of an exclusively quantum-produced stochastic cosmological constant. The specific example case of the Schwarzschild–deSitter geometry is looked at, analyzing the consequent stochastic modifications of the Einstein field equations. It is proved that, in such a setting, the black hole event horizon no longer identifies a classical (i.e., deterministic) two-dimensional surface. On the contrary, it acquires a quantum stochastic character, giving rise to a frame-dependent transition region of radial width δr between internal and external subdomains. It is found that: (a) the radial size of the stochastic region depends parametrically on the central mass M of the black hole, scaling as δr∼M3; (b) for supermassive black holes δr is typically orders of magnitude larger than the Planck length lP. Instead, for typical stellar-mass black holes, δr may drop well below lP. The outcome provides new insight into the quantum properties of black holes, with implications for the physics of quantum tunneling phenomena expected to arise across stochastic event horizons.


Author(s):  
John W. Moffat

Early observations of black holes, before the LIGO/Virgo detection of gravitational waves, were made by observing electromagnetic processes involving atomic spectral lines. X-ray binary systems were observed consisting of a progenitor star such as a neutron star and a dark companion. X-rays emitted from the gas accreting the dark companion tells us whether it is a black hole. Evidence indicated supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. From observations of orbits of stars near the supermassive black holes, one could determine their masses, which proved they were black holes. Observations of quasars, among the brightest objects in the universe, showed they contain black holes. It is important to establish the existence of an event horizon with the black hole, as predicted by general relativity. The current evidence for the event horizon is circumstantial, based on controversial theoretical models about the accretion disks surrounding the collapsed dark objects.


Author(s):  
V. P. Neznamov

It is proved that coordinate transformations of the Schwarzschild metric to new static and stationary metrics do not eliminate the mode of a particle “fall” to the event horizon of a black hole. This mode is unacceptable for the quantum mechanics of stationary states.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (S238) ◽  
pp. 345-346
Author(s):  
Carlos H. Coimbra-Araújo ◽  
Amâncio C. S. Friaça

AbstractWe show, performing a viable cosmological window, that only the magneto hydrodynamic (MHD) disk model is capable to explain how an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH) (with masses ∼ 103M⊙) grows unto a supermassive black hole (SMBH) (with masses ∼ 107M⊙). We still calculate the supermassive stars sequence of stability. Those stars, with synthetized helium or oxygen cores, collapse to form IMBHs. In our calculation we show that the primordial stars must have rapid rotation if they are in the stable part of the sequence.


2003 ◽  
Vol 208 ◽  
pp. 455-456
Author(s):  
Jeremy Tinker ◽  
Barbara Ryden

We present results of numerical simulations of mergers of spiral galaxies using GADGET (Springel, Yoshida, & White 2001). In three of these simulations one of the progenitor galaxies contained a central supermassive black hole (BH), as well as one simulation which did not contain a BH. The merger remnants were evolved to an age of ∼ 13 Gyr to examine the evolution of the shape of each merger remnant. The results of these simulations were compared to observations of elliptical galaxies, which show that older galaxies appear rounder than younger ones (Ryden, Forbes, & Terlevich 2001).We found that the simulations in which the BH mass was fixed throughout the evolution influence the shape of their host galaxies on timescales less than 3 Gyr. These simulations show little trend of shape with age beyond this time. In the simulations in which the BH mass increased linearly over the duration of the simulation, there is a significant evolution of the shape of the remnant throughout its lifetime, comparable to the observational trend.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (S359) ◽  
pp. 99-107
Author(s):  
C. Jones ◽  
W. Forman

AbstractSupermassive black holes (SMBHs) play[-105pt]Kindly check and confirm the Article Title. fundamental roles in the evolution of galaxies, groups, and clusters. The fossil record of supermassive black hole outbursts is seen through the cavities and shocks that are imprinted on these gas-rich systems. For M87, the central galaxy in the Virgo cluster, deep Chandra observations illustrate the physics of AGN feedback in hot, gas-rich atmospheres and allow measurements of the age, duration, and power of the outburst from the supermassive black hole in M87 that produced the observed cavities and shocks in the hot X-ray atmosphere.


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