Supermassive black hole6/13/2023 ![]() The explanation Yu and his colleagues propose works in the following way:ĭark matter particles first cluster together under the influence of gravity and form a dark matter halo. "Our work provides an alternative explanation: A self-interacting dark matter halo experiences gravothermal instability and its central region collapses into a seed black hole." "This mechanism, however, cannot produce a massive enough seed black hole to accommodate newly observed SMBHs-unless the seed black hole experienced an extremely fast growth rate," Yu said. In astrophysics, a popular mechanism used to explain SMBHs is the collapse of pristine gas in protogalaxies in the early universe. Its growth rate would be more consistent with general expectations." "Our paper shows that if dark matter has self-interactions then the gravothermal collapse of a halo can lead to a massive enough seed black hole. "It takes time for black holes to grow massive by accreting surrounding matter," said co-author Yi-Ming Zhong, a postdoctoral researcher at the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago. The question that then arises is what are the physical mechanisms for producing a massive enough seed black hole or achieving a fast enough growth rate?" "The seed-or 'baby'-black hole is either much more massive or it grows much faster than we thought, or both. And that's exciting."Ī seed black hole is a black hole at its initial stage-akin to the baby stage in the life of a human. The presence of SMBHs suggests these general expectations have been violated, requiring new knowledge. Where it comes to black holes, physicists have general expectations about the mass of a seed black hole and its growth rate. Such a child would astonish us all because we know the typical weight of a newborn baby and how fast this baby can grow. "It's like a 5-year-old child that weighs, say, 200 pounds. ![]() "Physicists are puzzled why SMBHs in the early universe, which are located in the central regions of dark matter halos, grow so massively in a short time," said Hai-Bo Yu, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at UC Riverside, who led the study that appears in Astrophysical Journal Letters. Were the visible matter of a galaxy not embedded in a dark matter halo, this matter would fly apart. Although dark matter has never been detected in laboratories, physicists remain confident this mysterious matter that makes up 85% of the universe's matter exists. A team led by a theoretical physicist at the University of California, Riverside, has come up with an explanation: A massive seed black hole that the collapse of a dark matter halo could produce.ĭark matter halo is the halo of invisible matter surrounding a galaxy or a cluster of galaxies.
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