An international team using ALMA detected high-resolution radio signals from warm gas surrounding a supermassive black hole (SMBH) dating back about 13 billion years, when the Universe was very young.
The warm gas, detected thanks to high-energy carbon monoxide (CO) emissions, is organized in a disk-like structure around the black hole, inside the quasar J2310+1855, an extremely luminous object powered by the intense activity of the black hole itself.
This observation is significant because many SMBHs in the early Universe are hidden by thick clouds of cosmic dust, which block visible light and X-rays, making them difficult to detect. However, the radio waves emitted by the warm gas and detected by ALMA are not absorbed by the dust, thus offering a new technique to find them.
The technique opens, in fact, a window into the early universe, allowing researchers to explore SMBHs when the universe was less than a billion years old, offering clues about their growth and the evolution of galaxies.
In this case, the black hole has an estimated mass greater than a billion times that of our Sun. The research team observed it, highlighting how the X-rays emitted by the quasar heat the surrounding gas to extreme temperatures.
This discovery not only allows scientists to study the conditions near black holes in the early universe, but could also help them understand how black holes formed and evolved. The researchers plan to apply this technique to other objects to obtain a more complete census of hidden black holes and delve deeper into their history.
In essence, the discovery of warm gas around a SMBH 12.9 billion light-years away represents a step forward in identifying hidden black holes and understanding their role in the young universe, thanks to the unique capabilities of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).
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Image: This illustration shows how intense X-ray radiation from the vicinity of a SMBH heats the surrounding gas. When viewed from the side, visible light and X-rays are blocked by the disk, effectively hiding the SMBH.
Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), K. Tadaki et al.
References
Scientific paper: Warm gas in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole 13 billion years ago
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