A new technique for studying some of the brightest objects in the universe has revealed an understanding of the relationship between active supermassive black holes and the suppression of star formation.
confirmed astronomers Quasars are the ultra-luminous cores of galaxies that contain highly active supermassive black holes. The intense quasar radiation originates from the massive amounts of hot gas that form an accretion disk around Black hole.
Using the Atacama Large Array “ALMA” in Chile, the experts added, the 3C 273 quasar was targeted, which is located 2.4 billion light-years from Earth, and 3C 273 is the closest quasar to the Milky Way and the first quasar ever identified. The quasar’s glow makes it difficult to observe the rest of its host galaxy, especially at the radio wavelengths used by ALMA.
Seeing bright and faint shapes in the same camera shot requires a property known as high dynamic range imaging. A typical digital camera has a dynamic imaging range in the thousands, compared to just the low hundreds for an alma telescope, which means it’s hard for an alma telescope to pick out the faint details once morest the details. The brightest.
So a research team from Kogakuin University in Japan, used a new technique they call “self-calibration”. Her idea is to reduce glare from the quasar by using the 3C 273 quasar itself to correct for fluctuations in Earth’s atmosphere that might affect ALMA’s detection of submillimeter radio waves.
This method results in increased contrast, ALMA detected 3C 273 quasars at frequencies of 93, 233 and 343 GHz, and self-calibration technology allowed dynamic imaging ranges of 85,000, 39,000 and 2,500, respectively – the highest dynamic ranges ever achieved by ALMA.
The technology revealed previously unseen details regarding the 3C 273 host galaxy, including what the scientists described as an “unknown structure”.
It detected a faint band of radio emissions across the host galaxy spanning tens of thousands of light years. This radio emission comes from tens of billions to hundreds of billions of solar masses of hydrogen gas ionized by ultraviolet and X-rays from the quasar.
It is believed that there is a relationship between the radiation from active supermassive black holes and the suppression of star formation in the host galaxies. The radiation flowing from the accretion disk acts as a backlash, heating molecular hydrogen gas so that it cannot form stars.
With that said, there appears to be plenty of cold molecular hydrogen gas left in the 3C 273 host galaxy, and star formation is continuing.
Therefore, astronomers confirmed, either that the relationship between the reactions from the quasar and the suppression of star formation is not as concrete as scientists believe, or perhaps the observation of the quasar 3C 273 and its galaxy occurred within a short time frame before the effects of the reactions became apparent.
The team is now observing other quasars in a similar way to gain a broader understanding of these processes with the aim of understanding how the galaxy evolves through its interaction with the central core.
