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A gravitational lensing gamma-ray burst, designated GRB 950830, helped astronomers detect a black hole about 55,000 times more massive than the Sun.
An artist’s impression of an intermediate mass black hole. Image Credit: Sci-News.com.
Astronomers know that compact stellar-mass black holes that vary between 10 and 100 times the mass of the Sun are the remnants of dying stars, and that supermassive black holes, those with masses more than 100,000 times the mass of the Sun , they live in the centers. of most galaxies.
But scattered throughout the Universe are some apparent black holes of a more mysterious kind.
Ranging from 100 to 100,000 solar masses, these intermediate-mass black holes have long been postulated to reside in the nuclei of globular clusters. However, direct observational signatures of its existence are elusive.
“The newly discovered black hole could be an ancient relic, a primordial black hole, created in the early Universe before the first stars and galaxies formed,” said Professor Eric Thrane, an astronomer at the School of Physics at the University of Monash and the ARC. Center of Excellence for the Discovery of Gravitational Waves (OzGrav).
“These first black holes may be the seeds of the supermassive black holes that live today in the hearts of galaxies.”
“The discovery sheds new light on how supermassive black holes form,” said James Paynter, a Ph.D. student at the Faculty of Physics at the University of Melbourne.
“While we know that these supermassive black holes lurk in the nuclei of most, if not all, galaxies, we do not understand how these giants are capable of growing so large within the age of the Universe.”
The new intermediate mass black hole was detected thanks to GRB 950830, a short burst of gamma rays with gravitational lenses.
The gamma ray burst, emitted by a pair of fused stars, was observed to have a telltale ‘echo’.
This echo was caused by the intermediate intermediate mass black hole, which deflected the path of light on its way to Earth, so that astronomers see the same flash twice.
Powerful software developed to detect black holes from gravitational waves was adapted to establish that the two flares are images of the same object.
“Our findings have the potential to help scientists make even greater advances,” said Professor Rachel Webster, also from the University of Melbourne School of Physics.
“Using this new black hole candidate, we can estimate the total number of these objects in the Universe.”
“We predicted that this could be possible 30 years ago, and it is exciting to have discovered a solid example.”
The findings appear in the journal. Nature astronomy.
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J. Paynter et al. Evidence for an intermediate mass black hole from a gravitational lensing gamma-ray burst. Nat Astron, published online March 29, 2021; doi: 10.1038 / s41550-021-01307-1
