A team of researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill discovered a hidden trove of massive black holes in dwarf galaxies. This trove of black holes had been previously overlooked, making this finding a key to our understanding of black holes in dwarf galaxies.
Black holes are typically detected when they are consuming gas and stardust, which makes them glow intensely. When they are not glowing, we are not able to detect them.
The problem is that black holes and newborn stars can emit a similar glow. Astronomers have a set of diagnostic tests that allows them to differentiate black holes and newborn stars. However, when the research team applied these tests to their data, they received mixed results. Two tests would indicate black holes, while the third test would indicate a star formation.
Research study coauthor Sheila Kannappan suspected that they might be undiscovered black holes in a dwarf galaxy. Coauthor Chris Richardson ran theoretical simulations with the mixed results and confirmed that the tests would match with a highly star-forming dwarf galaxy containing a growing massive black hole.
Mugdha Polimera, leading author of the study and Ph.D. student, set to work obtaining measurements, traditional and mixed message results, and surveys to test for black holes to confirm their work. She found that the new type of growing black holes were almost always in dwarf galaxies.
The researchers were elated with the results, which seemed almost too good. Their findings can lead to many new follow-up ideas and discoveries to help us understand black holes, including ones in our own Milky Way galaxy.
Sources:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (2022, May 27). Astronomers discover hidden trove of massive black holes – “we all got nervous”. SciTechDaily. Retrieved May 30, 2022, from https://scitechdaily.com/astronomers-discover-hidden-trove-of-massive-black-holes-we-all-got-nervous/
Written by: Vivien Chen
May 30, 2022
