NSF NOIRLab astronomers discover the fastest-feeding black hole in the early universe

There are supermassive black holes at the center of many galaxies, and modern telescopes continue to see them in the mysterious early ages of the Universe’s evolution. It is hard to understand how these black holes were able to grow so fast. But with the discovery of a supermassive black hole consuming matter at an extremely high rate, observed 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, astronomers now have important new insight into systems of rapidly growing black holes in the early Universe.

LID-568 was discovered by a team of astronomers led by International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab astronomer Hyewon Suh. They used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to look at a sample of galaxies from the Chandra X-ray Observatory legacy COSMOS survey. This number of galaxies is very bright in the X-ray part of the spectrum, but invisible to the naked eye and in the near infrared. JWST’s unique infrared sensitivity allows it to detect these faint emissions from their companions.

LID-568 stood out in the sample for its strong X-ray emission, but its position could not be determined from X-ray observations alone, raising concerns about and placing an accurate target in JWST’s field of view. So, instead of using traditional spectroscopy, JWST instrument support scientists suggested that Suh’s team use the primary field spectrometer in JWST’s NIRSpec. This tool can obtain a spectrum for each pixel in the device’s field of view instead of being limited to a narrow slice.

“Due to its rarity, the discovery of LID-568 would not have been possible without JWST. Using the spectrograph was innovative and necessary for our observations. ” says Emanuele Farina, an astronomer at the International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab and co-author of a paper appearing in The Nature of Astronomy.

JWST’s NIRSpec allowed the team to see in detail their target and the surrounding area, leading to the unexpected discovery of a strong outflow of gas around the central black hole. The speed and size of these outflows led the team to speculate that a large part of LID-568’s growth may have occurred in a single burst of rapid expansion. “This surprising result has added a new dimension to our understanding of the system and opened up exciting research opportunities,” said Suh.

In a surprising discovery, Suh and his team found that LID-568 appears to feed on matter at a rate 40 times faster than the Eddington limit. This limit is related to the maximum luminosity a black hole can achieve, as well as how fast it can absorb matter, so that its internal gravity and external pressure are generated. is the temperature of a compressed, falling object that remains in equilibrium. When the brightness of LID-568 was read as much higher than possible, the team knew they had something strange in their data.

“This black hole is having a party,” says International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab astronomer and co-author Julia Scharwächter. “This extreme case shows that the fast feeding process above the Eddington limit is one of the possible explanations for why we see these supermassive black holes in the early Universe .”

These results shed new light on the formation of supermassive black holes from tiny black hole ‘seeds’, which current theories suggest arise from the death of the first stars. Universe (light seeds) or direct collapse of gas clouds (heavy seeds). Until now, these theories had no tangible evidence. “The discovery of a super-Eddington black hole suggests that a large part of the mass growth can occur in a single fast feeding cycle, regardless of whether the black hole originated from the seed light or heavy.” said Suh.

The discovery of LID-568 also shows that it is possible for a black hole to exceed the Eddington limit, and gives astronomers the first opportunity to study how this happens. It is possible that the strong outflows observed in LID-568 may act as a release valve for the excess energy produced by the excess expansion, preventing the system from becoming too unstable. . To further investigate the mechanisms at play, the team plans to follow up on observations with JWST.

Additional information

This research was presented in a paper entitled “A super-Eddington-accreting black hole ~1.5 Gyr after the Big Bang and JWST” to appear in. The Nature of Astronomy. DOI: 10.1038/s41550-024-02402-9

The team is made up of Hyewon Suh (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab, USA), Julia Scharwächter (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab, USA), Emanuele Paolo Farina (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab, USA), Federica Loiacono (INAF – Astrophysics and Space Science Observatory, Italy), Giorgio Lanzuisi (INAF – Astrophysics and Space Science Observatory, Italy), Günther Hasinger (Institute for Nuclear and Particle Physics/DESY/German Institute for Astrophysics, Germany), Stefano Marchesi (INAF-Astrophysics and Space Science Observatory, Italy), Mar Mezcua (Institute of Space Sciences/Institute of Spatial Studies of Catalonia, Spain), Roberto Decarli (INAF – Astrophysics and Space Science Observatory, Italy), Brian C. Lemaux (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab , USA, Institute of Astrophysics, Italy), Marta Volonteri (Paris Institute of Astrophysics, France), Francesca Civano (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA), Sukyoung K. Yi (Department of Astronomy and Yonsei University Observatory, Republic of Korea) , San Han (Department of Astronomy and Yonsei University Observatory, Republic of Korea), Mark Rawlings (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab, USA), Denise Hung (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab, USA)

NSF NOIRLab (US National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory), a US ground-based astronomy center, works with the International Gemini Observatory (NSF, NRC-Canada, ANID-Chile, MCTIC-Brazil, MINCyT– Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and Vera C. Rubin Observatory (operated in collaboration with Department of Energy’s SLAC National Laboratory). It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. The community of astronomers is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on I’oligam Du’ag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, Maunakea in Hawai’i, and Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile. We acknowledge and appreciate the very important cultural role and respect that these places have for the Tohono O’odham Nation, for the Hawaiian community, and for the people of Chile, respectively.

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