Yale Astronomer Discovers Upper Mass Limit for Black Holes

[C1ay]

There appears to be an upper limit to how big the universe's most massive black holes can get, according to new research led by a Yale University astrophysicist.

 

Once considered rare and exotic objects, black holes are now known to exist throughout the universe, with the largest and most massive found at the centers of the largest galaxies. These "ultra-massive" black holes have been shown to have masses upwards of one billion times that of our own Sun. Now, Priyamvada Natarajan, an associate professor of astronomy and physics at Yale University and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and Ezequiel Treister, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hawaii, have shown that even the biggest of these gravitational monsters can't keep growing forever. Instead, they appear to curb their own growth - once they accumulate about 10 billion times the mass of the Sun.

 

These ultra-massive black holes, found at the centers of giant elliptical galaxies in huge galaxy clusters, are the biggest in the known universe. Even the large black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy is thousands of times less massive than these behemoths. But these gigantic black holes, which accumulate mass by sucking in matter from neighboring gas, dust and stars, seem unable to grow beyond this limit regardless of where - and when - they appear in the universe. "It's not just happening today," said Natarajan. "They shut off at every epoch in the universe."

 

The study, to appear in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), represents the first time an upper mass limit has been derived for black holes. Natarajan and Treister used existing optical and X-ray data of these ultra-massive black holes to show that, in order for those various observations to be consistent, the black holes must essentially shut off at some point in their evolution.

 

One possible explanation put forth by Natarajan is that the black holes eventually reach the point when they radiate so much energy as they consume their surroundings that they end up interfering with the very gas supply that feeds them, which may interrupt nearby star formation. The new findings have implications for the future study of galaxy formation, since many of the largest galaxies in the universe appear to co-evolve along with the black holes at their centers.

 

"Evidence has been mounting for the key role that black holes play in the process of galaxy formation," said Natarajan. "But it now appears that they are likely the prima donnas of this space opera."

 

The authors of the paper are Priyamvada Natarajan (Yale University and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study) and Ezequiel Treister (European Southern Observatory, Chile and University of Hawaii).

 

Source: Yale University

[Tormod]

So black holes simply get too big for themselves. I wonder what causes them to stop growing.

[C1ay]

I can't say that I'm convinced. Is it possible that our whole universe came from a black hole so big that it contained all of the matter in the whole universe that we know? Could such a black hole have had something similar to a supernova event on a much larger scale that is what we have come to call the Big Bang?

[Hasanuddin]

Ooops, I though I was replying to Modest, on the discussion of the Dominium Model on the Alternate Theories board in the Physical Sciences group. Modest had just shown three articles, and this was one of them. I'll include my critique here as well as in the full response to Modest.

 

The third article http://hypography.com/forums/astronomy-news/16106-yale-astronomer-discovers-upper-mass-limit.html although interesting, I do not agree with the absolute soundness of the ultimate conclusions being made by the scientists referenced. Essentially this article represents an account of observations of the last portion of the AGN growth cycle as the process slows down. (Wow, things have come a long way in the past decade, such observations, though not surprising, is truly news to me!)

 

Although I find it totally cool that folks have observed the last phases of AGN growth… I do not agree with the final conclusion that the statistical survey conducted can claim that there is a maximum size/limit for black-hole growth. Quite to the contrary, to me, all this survey does is confirm the Dominium assumption that self-assembly would have applied from earliest on in the development of the Universe. Systems that self-assemble do so predicatably and uniformly. The notion that ultimate galaxy size and the assertion that all protogalaxies contain micelles (that will ultimately dam-up the gate-interface) is central to the understandings of systems that self-assemble. The repercussion from this would result in a uniformity of size of resulting quadrants—exactly what appears to have been observed.

 

Therefore, this article seems to lend credit to the notion of self-assemblage (not the stated max-size for black-holes.) Besides, the notion of a maximum size for black-holes is contradictory given the premises that have been established on this thread in moves 6-7; if black-hole material is the most stable phase of existence, then its size (micro or super-duper) would not affect its degree of stability. No other phase is dependent on sample size; there’s no reason to think that black-holes would be.

 

Again, as this article goes on, Natarajan says, “They shut off at every epoch in the universe." Again, this assertion confirms the earlier assertion that all dominia would contain micelles, therefore all seed AGN would eventually be turned off.

 

This article is the only one that began to talk about the popular explanation for this observed paradoxical anomaly (AGN stopping eating and subsisting in the most mass-dense portions of galaxies) when Natarajan goes on to say

”the black holes eventually reach the point when they radiate so much energy as they consume their surroundings that they end up interfering with the very gas supply that feeds them”

(This is the “blowing” part of the popular explanation that CraigD mentioned on post 72.) As mentioned in the post immediately before this one, this popular-explanation raises more questions than it answers.

 

Thank you Modest. All three of the articles were very interesting, tangible, and based on current data. I learned a few things with that read and thoroughly enjoyed myself. If there are any concerns raised by my assessment of this data and how is combines/jibes with the Dominium, I’ll be happy to delve deeper.