Black holes turn up the heat for the universe
Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies
Until recently, astrophysicists thought that supermassive black holes can only influence their immediate surroundings. But recent results to be published in the Astrophysical Journal and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society reveal a process where gamma-ray emitting, supermassive black holes can influence the formation and growth of entire galaxies.
Christoph Pfrommer, one of the co-authors, explained to Waves and Packets that "the energetic TeV photons from blazers essentially annihilate on the sea of ordinary photons (optical light) that fill the universe. This annihilation is possible because the photons are so energetic that they can pair-produce electrons and positrons in this process. The pairs of electrons and positrons produced in this way initially continue to fly in the direction of the original gamma ray photon, but not for long. Plasma instabilities let the electron-positron beam become unstable. As a result, it gets dissipated quickly in the local gas, such that the original energy of the TeV photons becomes available for heating up the gas and can be observed as an additional broadening of the lines in quasar spectra."
The research team was able to quantitatively match observed spectra to spectra predicted through cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. The phenomena postulated in this work, i.e., blazar heating, may hold the key to some long-standing puzzles in galaxy evolution.More
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