Optical observations from within a black-hole: a large-scale viewpoint

1981 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-382
Author(s):  
G. Debney ◽  
D. Farnsworth
1998 ◽  
Vol 188 ◽  
pp. 388-389
Author(s):  
A. Kubota ◽  
K. Makishima ◽  
T. Dotani ◽  
H. Inoue ◽  
K. Mitsuda ◽  
...  

About 10 X-ray binaries in our Galaxy and LMC/SMC are considered to contain black hole candidates (BHCs). Among these objects, Cyg X-1 was identified as the first BHC, and it has led BHCs for more than 25 years(Oda 1977, Liang and Nolan 1984). It is a binary system composed of normal blue supergiant star and the X-ray emitting compact object. The orbital kinematics derived from optical observations indicates that the compact object is heavier than ~ 4.8 M⊙ (Herrero 1995), which well exceeds the upper limit mass for a neutron star(Kalogora 1996), where we assume the system consists of only two bodies. This has been the basis for BHC of Cyg X-1.


1997 ◽  
Vol 163 ◽  
pp. 620-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Ford ◽  
Z. Tsvetanov ◽  
L. Ferrarese ◽  
G. Kriss ◽  
W. Jaffe ◽  
...  

AbstractHST images have led to the discovery that small (r ~ 1″ r ~ 100 – 200 pc), well-defined, gaseous disks are common in the nuclei of elliptical galaxies. Measurements of rotational velocities in the disks provide a means to measure the central mass and search for massive black holes in the parent galaxies. The minor axes of these disks are closely aligned with the directions of the large–scale radio jets, suggesting that it is angular momentum of the disk rather than that of the black hole that determines the direction of the radio jets. Because the disks are directly observable, we can study the disks themselves, and investigate important questions which cannot be directly addressed with observations of the smaller and unresolved central accretion disks. In this paper we summarize what has been learned to date in this rapidly unfolding new field.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (S359) ◽  
pp. 312-317
Author(s):  
Francoise Combes

AbstractGas fueling AGN (Active Galaxy Nuclei) is now traceable at high-resolution with ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) and NOEMA (NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array). Dynamical mechanisms are essential to exchange angular momentum and drive the gas to the super-massive black hole. While at 100pc scale, the gas is sometimes stalled in nuclear rings, recent observations reaching 10pc scale (50mas), may bring smoking gun evidence of fueling, within a randomly oriented nuclear gas disk. AGN feedback is also observed, in the form of narrow and collimated molecular outflows, which point towards the radio mode, or entrainment by a radio jet. Precession has been observed in a molecular outflow, indicating the precession of the radio jet. One of the best candidates for precession is the Bardeen-Petterson effect at small scale, which exerts a torque on the accreting material, and produces an extended disk warp. The misalignment between the inner and large-scale disk, enhances the coupling of the AGN feedback, since the jet sweeps a large part of the molecular disk.


2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (S267) ◽  
pp. 273-282
Author(s):  
Andrew King

AbstractI review accretion and outflow in active galactic nuclei. Accreti4on appears to occur in a series of very small-scale, chaotic events, whose gas flows have no correlation with the large-scale structure of the galaxy or with each other. The accreting gas has extremely low specific angular momentum and probably represents only a small fraction of the gas involved in a galaxy merger, which may be the underlying driver.Eddington accretion episodes in AGN must be common in order for the supermassive black holes to grow. I show that they produce winds with velocities v ~ 0.1c and ionization parameters implying the presence of resonance lines of helium-like and hydrogen-like iron. The wind creates a strong cooling shock as it interacts with the interstellar medium of the host galaxy, and this cooling region may be observable in an inverse Compton continuum and lower-excitation emission lines associated with lower velocities. The shell of matter swept up by the shocked wind stalls unless the black hole mass has reached the value Mσ implied by the M–σ relation. Once this mass is reached, further black hole growth is prevented. If the shocked gas did not cool as asserted above, the resulting (“energy-driven”) outflow would imply a far smaller SMBH mass than actually observed. Minor accretion events with small gas fractions can produce galaxy-wide outflows, including fossil outflows in galaxies where there is little current AGN activity.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
David Garofalo

While the basic laws of physics seem time-reversal invariant, our understanding of the apparent irreversibility of the macroscopic world is well grounded in the notion of entropy. Because astrophysics deals with the largest structures in the Universe, one expects evidence there for the most pronounced entropic arrow of time. However, in recent theoretical astrophysics work it appears possible to identify constructs with time-reversal symmetry, which is puzzling in the large-scale realm especially because it involves the engines of powerful outflows in active galactic nuclei which deal with macroscopic constituents such as accretion disks, magnetic fields, and black holes. Nonetheless, the underlying theoretical structure from which this accreting black hole framework emerges displays a time-symmetric harmonic behavior, a feature reminiscent of basic and simple laws of physics. While we may expect such behavior for classical black holes due to their simplicity, manifestations of such symmetry on the scale of galaxies, instead, surprise. In fact, we identify a parallel between the astrophysical tug-of-war between accretion disks and jets in this model and the time symmetry-breaking of a simple overdamped harmonic oscillator. The validity of these theoretical ideas in combination with this unexpected parallel suggests that black holes are more influential in astrophysics than currently recognized and that black hole astrophysics is a more fundamental discipline.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-134
Author(s):  
Assylkhan Bibossinov ◽  
◽  
Denis Yurin ◽  
Chingis Omarov ◽  
◽  
...  

Numerical studies of astrophysical objects are a relatively new direction in Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute (FAI) and is mainly represented by the Laboratory of Cosmology, Stellar Dynamics and Computational Astrophysics. The lab seeks to understand the evolution of gravitating systems at various scales – from star clusters to galaxies to large-scale structure of the universe as a whole, and tackles these problems both through analytical methods and through numerical simulations. The particular focus is on numerical simulations of star clusters, especially those found in active galactic nuclei – this is a topic of oldestablished collaboration with colleagues from Astronomisches Rechen-Institut (Heidelberg) and National Astronomical Observatories of China (Beijing). The prominent example is STARDISK project dedicated to the numerical research of active galactic nuclei as multicomponent systems composed of compact stellar cluster, gaseous accretion disk and a supermassive black hole. It is demonstrated that an accretion disk can noticeably decelerate stars and thus enhance the accretion rate onto the black hole. In 2013 FAI hosted the MODEST-13 International Workshop dedicated to modeling of star clusters. Recently a new project has been approved aimed at construction of triaxial equilibrium N-body systems that can be of great help in various numerical experiments with disk galaxies. There are also long standing plans to perform cosmological simulations of large scale structures to test a new approach to dark matter and energy actively developed at FAI. For numerical calculations, FAI has a small, but growing computer cluster consisting of several high-performance computing servers equipped with computational GPU cards.


2020 ◽  
Vol 498 (3) ◽  
pp. 3601-3615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Bortolas ◽  
Pedro R Capelo ◽  
Tommaso Zana ◽  
Lucio Mayer ◽  
Matteo Bonetti ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The forthcoming Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will probe the population of coalescing massive black hole (MBH) binaries up to the onset of structure formation. Here, we simulate the galactic-scale pairing of ∼106 M⊙ MBHs in a typical, non-clumpy main-sequence galaxy embedded in a cosmological environment at z = 7–6. In order to increase our statistical sample, we adopt a strategy that allows us to follow the evolution of six secondary MBHs concomitantly. We find that the magnitude of the dynamical-friction-induced torques is significantly smaller than that of the large-scale, stochastic gravitational torques arising from the perturbed and morphologically evolving galactic disc, suggesting that the standard dynamical friction treatment is inadequate for realistic galaxies at high redshift. The dynamical evolution of MBHs is very stochastic, and a variation in the initial orbital phase can lead to a drastically different time-scale for the inspiral. Most remarkably, the development of a galactic bar in the host system either significantly accelerates the inspiral by dragging a secondary MBH into the centre, or ultimately hinders the orbital decay by scattering the MBH in the galaxy outskirts. The latter occurs more rarely, suggesting that galactic bars overall promote MBH inspiral and binary coalescence. The orbital decay time can be an order of magnitude shorter than what would be predicted relying on dynamical friction alone. The stochasticity and the important role of global torques have crucial implications for the rates of MBH coalescences in the early Universe: both have to be accounted for when making predictions for the upcoming LISA observatory.


Universe ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gennady Bisnovatyi-Kogan

The exact time-dependent solution is obtained for a magnetic field growth during a spherically symmetric accretion into a black hole (BH) with a Schwarzschild metric. Magnetic field is increasing with time, changing from the initially uniform into a quasi-radial field. Equipartition between magnetic and kinetic energies in the falling gas is supposed to be established in the developed stages of the flow. Estimates of the synchrotron radiation intensity are presented for the stationary flow. The main part of the radiation is formed in the relativistic region r ≤ 7 r g , where r g is a BH gravitational radius. The two-dimensional stationary self-similar magnetohydrodynamic solution is obtained for the matter accretion into BH, in a presence of a large-scale magnetic field, under assumption, that the magnetic field far from the BH is homogeneous and its influence on the flow is negligible. At the symmetry plane perpendicular to the direction of the distant magnetic field, the dense quasi-stationary disk is formed around BH, which structure is determined by dissipation processes. Solutions of the disk structure have been obtained for a laminar disk with Coulomb resistivity and for a turbulent disk. Parameters of the shock forming due to matter infall onto the disk are obtained. The radiation spectrum of the disk and the shock are obtained for the 10 M ⊙ BH. The luminosity of such object is about the solar one, for a characteristic galactic gas density, with possibility of observation at distances less than 1 kpc. The spectra of a laminar and a turbulent disk structure around BH are very different. The laminar disk radiates mainly in the ultraviolet, the turbulent disk emits a large part of its flux in the infrared. It may occur that some of the galactic infrared star-like sources are a single BH in the turbulent accretion state. The radiative efficiency of the magnetized disk is very high, reaching ∼ 0.5 M ˙ c 2 . This model of accretion was called recently as a magnetically arrested disk (MAD). Numerical simulations of MAD and its appearance during accretion into neutron stars, are considered and discussed.


1978 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 253-262
Author(s):  
G. O. Abell

Holmberg's (1937) analysis of the distribution of double and multiple galaxies provided what may have been the first hint of a local inhomogeneity of greater scale than that of the Local Group. the idea of a Local Supercluster was subsequently revived by de Vaucouleurs (1953, 1956, 1958). the analyses of others, as well as the continuing study of de Vaucouleurs himself (1976 and references cited therein) have now effectively established the reality of the Local Supercluster. Several other more remote inhomogeneities, or “clouds” of galaxies, were described by Shane and Wirtanen (1954). the writer (Abell 1958) found the distribution of rich clusters to be clumpy, and published a finding list of several apparent superclusters (Abell 1961).


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