Active, supermassive black holes at the
hearts of galaxies tend to fall into two categories: those that are
hidden by dust, and those that are exposed. Image credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech. Full image and caption
This infographic explains a popular theory
of active supermassive black holes, referred to as the unified model --
and how new data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or
WISE, is at conflict with the model. Image credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/NOAO/AURA/NSF/ESO. Full image and caption - enlarge image
A survey of more than 170,000 supermassive black holes, using NASA's
Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), has astronomers reexamining a
decades-old theory about the varying appearances of these interstellar
objects.
The unified theory of active, supermassive black holes, first
developed in the late 1970s, was created to explain why black holes,
though similar in nature, can look completely different. Some appear to
be shrouded in dust, while others are exposed and easy to see.
The unified model answers this question by proposing that every black
hole is surrounded by a dusty, doughnut-shaped structure called a
torus. Depending on how these "doughnuts" are oriented in space, the
black holes will take on various appearances. For example, if the
doughnut is positioned so that we see it edge-on, the black hole is
hidden from view. If the doughnut is observed from above or below,
face-on, the black hole is clearly visible.
However, the new WISE results do not corroborate this theory. The
researchers found evidence that something other than a doughnut
structure may, in some circumstances, determine whether a black hole is
visible or hidden. The team has not yet determined what this may be, but
the results suggest the unified, or doughnut, model does not have all
the answers.
"Our finding revealed a new feature about active black holes we never
knew before, yet the details remain a mystery," said Lin Yan of NASA's
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), based at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "We hope our work will inspire
future studies to better understand these fascinating objects."
Yan is the second author of the research accepted for publication in
the Astrophysical Journal. The lead author is a post-doctoral
researcher, Emilio Donoso, who worked with Yan at IPAC and has since
moved to the Instituto de Ciencias Astronómicas, de la Tierra y del
Espacio in Argentina. The research also was co-authored by Daniel Stern
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and Roberto
Assef of Universidad Diego Portales in Chile and formerly of JPL.
Every galaxy has a massive black hole at its heart. The new study
focuses on the "feeding" ones, called active, supermassive black holes,
or active galactic nuclei. These black holes gorge on surrounding gas
material that fuels their growth.
With the aid of computers, scientists were able to pick out more than
170,000 active supermassive black holes from the WISE data. They then
measured the clustering of the galaxies containing both hidden and
exposed black holes -- the degree to which the objects clump together
across the sky.
If the unified model were true, and the hidden black holes are simply
blocked from view by doughnuts in the edge-on configuration, then
researchers would expect them to cluster in the same way as the exposed
ones. According to theory, since the doughnut structures would take on
random orientations, the black holes should also be distributed
randomly. It is like tossing a bunch of glazed doughnuts in the air --
roughly the same percentage of doughnuts always will be positioned in
the edge-on and face-on positions, regardless of whether they are
tightly clumped or spread far apart.
But WISE found something totally unexpected. The results showed the
galaxies with hidden black holes are more clumped together than those of
the exposed black holes. If these findings are confirmed, scientists
will have to adjust the unified model and come up with new ways to
explain why some black holes appear hidden.
"The main purpose of unification was to put a zoo of different kinds
of active nuclei under a single umbrella," said Donoso. Now, that has
become increasingly complex to do as we dig deeper into the WISE data."
Another way to understand the WISE results involves dark matter. Dark
matter is an invisible substance that dominates matter in the universe,
outweighing the regular matter that makes up people, planets and stars.
Every galaxy sits in the center of a dark matter halo. Bigger halos
have more gravity and, therefore, pull other galaxies toward them.
Because WISE found that the obscured black holes are more clustered
than the others, the researchers know those hidden black holes reside in
galaxies with larger dark matter halos. Though the halos themselves
would not be responsible for hiding the black holes, they could be a
clue about what is occurring.
"The unified theory was proposed to explain the complexity of what
astronomers were seeing," said Stern. "It seems that simple model may
have been too simple. As Einstein said, models should be made 'as simple
as possible, but not simpler.'"
Scientists still are actively combing public data from WISE, which
was put into hibernation in 2011 after scanning Earth's entire sky
twice. WISE was reactivated in 2013, renamed NEOWISE, and given a new
mission to identify potentially hazardous near-Earth objects.
For more information about NEOWISE, visit: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/programs/neowise.html
For more information about WISE, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/wise
J.D. Harrington
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-5241
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov
Whitney Clavin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-4673
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov
