超大質(zhì)量黑洞都以同樣的方式進食，但改變了它們的“情緒光照”

超大質(zhì)量黑洞都以同樣的方式進食，但改變了它們的“情緒光照”

At the center of almost every galaxy, there is a supermassive black hole. Some are very active, constantly feeding on materials, while others are quiet and only occasionally snack on the poor unfortunate stars that end up too close to them.

幾乎每個星系的中心都有一個超大質(zhì)量黑洞。一些非?；钴S，不斷地以物質(zhì)為食，而另一些很安靜，只是偶爾地以可憐的不幸的恒星為食，因為它們離自己太近了。

Alfredo Carpineti

The latter types have been at the center of a mystery. When stars are being destroyed and eaten by a black hole, they emit either visible light or X-rays, but never both, so astronomers wondered if they were observing two different dining styles. In a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers write that they believe this difference in “mood lighting”, as they call it, is the result of us observing two different moments during the black hole feast.

后者一直是一個謎的中心。當恒星被黑洞摧毀并吞噬時，它們會發(fā)出可見光或x射線，但不會同時發(fā)出，所以天文學家懷疑他們觀察到了兩種不同的吞噬方式。在《天體物理學雜志》發(fā)表的一項新研究中，研究人員寫道，他們認為這種所謂的“情緒光照”差異，是我們在黑洞盛宴期間觀察兩個不同時刻的結(jié)果。

Captured stars are stretched into long strings, as the intense gravity pulls them apart in what it is technically known as a tidal disruption event. The material stretches all the way around the black hole and smacks back into itself. The team, led by Peter Jonker from SRON and Radboud University, found that previous events that emitted visible light were detectable in X-rays after a few years.

被捕獲的恒星被拉伸成長串，因為強烈的重力將它們分開，這在技術(shù)上被稱為潮汐干擾事件。這種物質(zhì)一直圍繞著黑洞延伸，然后彈回黑洞。由來自SRON和Radboud大學的Peter Jonker領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的研究小組發(fā)現(xiàn)，之前發(fā)射可見光的事件在幾年后可以用x射線探測到。

The team has two possible explanations for the different light emissions. In the first one, the researchers suggest that as the material collides with itself, it emits visible light and afterward, as it gets closer to the black hole, it starts glowing in X-rays. The second suggestion is that both visible light and X-rays are emitted at the same time, but the collision produces a cloud of material that absorbs the X-rays. So only after that cloud disperses do the X-rays become visible.

研究小組對不同的光輻射有兩種可能的解釋。在第一個實驗中，研究人員提出，當物質(zhì)與自身發(fā)生碰撞時，它會發(fā)出可見光，隨后，當它靠近黑洞時，就會發(fā)出x射線。第二種說法是，可見光和x射線同時發(fā)射，但碰撞產(chǎn)生的物質(zhì)云吸收了x射線。所以只有在云層消散后，x射線才會顯現(xiàn)出來。

This work has some interesting consequences. The study of the X-ray emission from tidal disruption events can provide independent confirmation that black holes really do spin themselves. That’s because there is a connection between the X-rays and the rotation of the black hole.

這項工作產(chǎn)生了一些有趣的結(jié)果。對潮汐擾動事件的x射線輻射的研究可以提供獨立的證據(jù)，證明黑洞確實會自旋。這是因為x射線和黑洞的旋轉(zhuǎn)之間存在聯(lián)系。

Another important fact is that a recently launched X-ray observatory, eROSITA, will soon be able to put these hypotheses to the test. In the paper, the team states that up to 990 of these tidal disruption events might be seen every year by this new telescope.

另一個重要的事實是，最近發(fā)射的x射線天文臺eROSITA不久將能夠?qū)@些假說進行檢驗。在這篇論文中，研究小組稱，通過這臺新望遠鏡，每年可能會觀測到990次這種潮汐干擾事件。