An artist’s illustration of galaxy distribution, a host galaxy of an
active galactic nucleus (AGN), and an active galactic nucleus. An AGN is
a luminous compact region at the center of the galaxy, powered by the
accretion of gas onto the massive black hole. This research reveals that
the mass of a massive black hole at the galaxy center is related to the
distribution of surrounding galaxies.
The research team investigated environment in which a galaxy with a
massive black hole at its center exists. The team’s research extended
over data for approximately 70 million galaxies, with approximately
10,000 massive black holes researched. This vast amount of data was
collected through the Virtual Observatory; it connects a variety of
astronomical databases around the world via the Internet, making it
possible to comprehensively use the collected data.
The difference of galactic density according to black-hole mass (the
vertical axis shows the size of regions with enhanced galactic density:
the bigger the size, the higher the density). The heavier black holes
are located in galaxies with higher density for black holes with mass
larger than ~10^8 solar mass. While the less massive black holes show no
correlation between the mass of black holes and the density of
galaxies.
The scientific paper on which this article is based appears in the Astrophysical Journal.
(Komiya
et al. “A Cross-correlation Analysis of Active Galactic Nuclei and
Galaxies Using Virtual Observatory: Dependence on Virial Mass of
Supermassive Black Hole”, published in the Astrophysical Journal,
vol.775, article id.43)
