MPIA: Discovery in the Early Universe Poses Black Hole Growth Puzzle

[bystander]

Discovery in the Early Universe Poses Black Hole Growth Puzzle
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy | 2017 May 11

[c][attachment=0]standard_sans_right-1494256721[1].jpg[/attachment][/c][hr][/hr]

Quasars are luminous objects with supermassive black holes at their centers, visible over vast cosmic distances. Infalling matter increases the black hole mass and is also responsible for a quasar's brightness. Now, using the W.M. Keck observatory in Hawaii, astronomers led by Christina Eilers have discovered extremely young quasars with a puzzling property: these quasars have the mass of about a billion suns, yet have been collecting matter for less than 100,000 years. Conventional wisdom says quasars of that mass should have needed to pull in matter a thousand times longer than that – a cosmic conundrum.

Within the heart of every massive galaxy lurks a supermassive black hole. How these black holes formed, and how they have grown to be as massive as millions or even billions of suns, is an open question. At least some phases of vigorous growth are highly visible to astronomical observers: Whenever there are substantial amounts of gas swirling into the black hole, matter in the direct vicinity of the black hole emits copious amount of light. The black hole has intermittently turned into a quasar, one of the most luminous objects in the universe.

Now, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) have discovered three quasars that challenge conventional wisdom on black hole growth. These quasars are extremely massive, but should not have had sufficient time to collect all that mass. The discovery, which is based on observations at the W.M. Keck observatory in Hawaii, glimpses into ancient cosmic history: Because of their extreme brightness, quasars can be observed out to large distances. The astronomers observed quasars whose light took nearly 13 billion years to reach Earth. In consequence, the observations show these quasars not as they are today, but as they were almost 13 billion years ago, less than a billion years after the big bang. ...

Implications of z ~ 6 Quasar Proximity Zones for the Epoch of Reionization and Quasar Lifetime - Anna-Christina Eilers et al

• Astrophysical Journal 840(1):24 (01 May 2017) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aa6c60
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1703.02539 > 07 Mar 2017 (v1), 10 May 2017 (v2)

[warmingwarmingwarming]

Yup. Another huge mystery upsetting conventional understanding .. another reason not to put ideas into boxes, package them with pretty paper, and say .. "Here's a complete gift for you." The giftee, upon opening the box, no matter how nicely packaged, finds huge pieces missing.

[warmingwarmingwarming]

Yup. Another huge mystery upsetting conventional understanding .. another reason not to put ideas into boxes, package them with pretty paper, and say .. "Here's a complete gift for you." The giftee, upon opening the box, no matter how nicely packaged, finds huge pieces missing.

One thought which will be automatically rejected as ludicrous by many people .. what if Spacetime itself has mass we are unaware of .. and Black Holes grow by swallowing Spacetime? Sure .. crazy at the least.

[neufer]

One thought which will be automatically rejected as ludicrous by many people .. what if Spacetime itself has mass we are unaware of .. and Black Holes grow by swallowing Spacetime? Sure .. crazy at the least.

Spacetime has (dark) energy in excess of any mass that it might have... and this excess is measurable.

[warmingwarmingwarming]

One thought which will be automatically rejected as ludicrous by many people .. what if Spacetime itself has mass we are unaware of .. and Black Holes grow by swallowing Spacetime? Sure .. crazy at the least.

Spacetime has (dark) energy in excess of any mass that it might have... and this excess is measurable.

Neufer could that Dark Energy be equated to mass in some way or other?

[neufer]

One thought which will be automatically rejected as ludicrous by many people .. what if Spacetime itself has mass we are unaware of .. and Black Holes grow by swallowing Spacetime? Sure .. crazy at the least.

Spacetime has (dark) energy in excess of any mass that it might have... and this excess is measurable.

Neufer could that Dark Energy be equated to mass in some way or other?

The Dark Energy can be equated to mass plus negative pressure.

Spacetime curvature is dominated by the negative pressure component.

[warmingwarmingwarming]

One thought which will be automatically rejected as ludicrous by many people .. what if Spacetime itself has mass we are unaware of .. and Black Holes grow by swallowing Spacetime? Sure .. crazy at the least.

Spacetime has (dark) energy in excess of any mass that it might have... and this excess is measurable.

Neufer could that Dark Energy be equated to mass in some way or other?

Negative Mass .. very interesting stuff, "an object with negative inertial mass would be expected to accelerate in the opposite direction to that in which it was pushed." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_mass

This leads me to "metals gain weight when oxidizing" .. which probably means planet earth gained weight (mass, thus gravity, right?) over time (?) Could this be another reason animals (and man as well according to some historians) grew smaller, with slowing of time, over time? If this discussion isn't your cup of tea please don't feel obligated to continue. Man, ideas sure can percolate.

[neufer]

Neufer could that Dark Energy be equated to mass in some way or other?

The Dark Energy can be equated to mass plus negative pressure.

Spacetime curvature is dominated by the negative pressure component.

Negative Mass .. very interesting stuff,
"an object with negative inertial mass would be expected to accelerate in the opposite direction to that in which it was pushed." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_mass

Negative mass is an interesting hypothetical concept. (I can still recall reading Fred Hoyle's 1955 Frontiers of Astronomy when I was just 9 and being amused by his reference to a negative mass particle chasing a positive mass particle as "a dog chase cat" situation. Who knew Astronomy could be funny?)

But I'm talking about negative pressure:

The Casimir effect can create a small attractive force due to interactions with vacuum energy; this force is sometimes termed "vacuum pressure" (not to be confused with the negative gauge pressure of a vacuum):

The cosmological constant Λ appears in Einstein's field equation in the form of

---

where R and g describe the structure of spacetime, T pertains to matter and energy affecting that structure, and G and c are conversion factors that arise from using traditional units of measurement. When Λ is zero, this reduces to the original field equation of general relativity. When T is zero, the field equation describes empty space (the vacuum).

The cosmological constant has the same effect as an intrinsic energy density of the vacuum, ρ_vac (and an associated pressure). In this context, it is commonly moved onto the right-hand side of the equation, and defined with a proportionality factor of 8π: Λ = 8πρ_vac, where unit conventions of general relativity are used (otherwise factors of G and c would also appear, i.e. Λ = 8π(G/c²)ρ_vac = κρ_vac, where κ is Einstein's constant). It is common to quote values of energy density directly, though still using the name "cosmological constant", with convention 8πG = 1. (The true dimension of Λ is a length⁻² and it has the value of 1.19×10⁻⁵² m⁻² or in reduced Planck units : ~ 3×10−¹²², calculated with the best present values of ΩΛ = 0.6911±0.0062 and H_o = 67.74±0.46 (km/s)/Mpc = (2.195±0.015)×10⁻¹⁸ s⁻¹).

A positive vacuum energy density resulting from a cosmological constant implies a negative pressure, and vice versa. If the energy density is positive, the associated negative pressure will drive an accelerated expansion of the universe, as observed.