Supermassive Diet: Black Holes Bulk-Up On Dark Matter

astroengine writes It has long been assumed that the size of a supermassive black hole in a galaxy's core is intimately related to the number of stars that galaxy contains — but it might not be that simple after all. According to new research, it may in fact be a galaxy's extensive dark matter halo that controls the evolution of the central supermassive black hole and not the total number of stars that galaxy contains. "There seems to be a mysterious link between the amount of dark matter a galaxy holds and the size of its central black hole, even though the two operate on vastly different scales," said lead author Akos Bogdan of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), Cambridge, Mass.

Comments

Re:Jump That Gun

[Skarjak]

"Assuming?" I presume you know nothing of the abundance of research on the subject and you're talking out of your ass? Google "galaxy rotation curve" and "bullet cluster" before you embarass yourself further, please. Can't believe this trash gets modded as insightful...

Re:Jump That Gun

[Skarjak]

None of what you just wrote makes any sense... You're using word that a scientists might use, but out of their proper context. Again, google "galaxy rotation curve" and "bullet cluster". From what I gather, you seem to think we think dark matter exists because we're missing mass, but you are not taking into account the locations where we are missing mass. Black holes can't be responsible for what we're seeing. Also, dimensions are not places. Something can't be "in" a dimension. That's like saying that you got lost in a the third dimension... length! Dimensions are used to describe points in spacetime. The extra dimensions of string theory (which has yet to be proven in any way, might I add) can be thought of as extra numbers that you assign to every point of spacetime. That's all.

And just what a is a gravitational shadow?

Also the gravity that we see from black holes is from the core of the dead star that gave birth to them... Or in the case of supermassive black holes, the gas that presumably collapsed to form it. It is real matter, not twlight zone matter, and its effect is fully accounted for and routinely simulated.

This comment section makes my head hurt

[Skarjak]

Why is it that people who have spent 30 seconds thinking about the problem think they know better than significantly more intelligent people who have spent decades? Especially when the (very large and convincing) amount of evidence for dark matter is easily accessible through a bit of googling. Guys, dark matter isn't just scientists throwing their arms in the air. It just works. Models with dark matter work much better than models without. And we've made multiple observations of things that point to dark matter existing. And no, it can't be black holes or brown dwarfs. That's been thought of a long time ago and it doesn't work. If you have a better idea and years of papers to support it, by all means, you can trash talk dark matter. Otherwise, please don't spread your ignorance. Science is not a democracy, and your opinion doesn't matter if it's unsupported.

Re:This comment section makes my head hurt

[david_thornley]

And a lot of people here are adding brown dwarf stars to wherever needed so the gravity works. Same thing, except that we'd detect all those brown dwarfs.

Re:This comment section makes my head hurt

[Skarjak]

It's not a big leap actually. Dark matter might even be neutrinos, although I'm not entirely up to date on that area of research. We just need a particle that interacts gravitationally and perhaps weakly with baryonic matter (that's the part that most people miss, a weak interaction is allowed). We already know stuff that does that. We just aren't sure there's enough of it, so we're searching for other particles that might fit the bill. Dark matter really doesn't have to be that exotic.

And I assure you that the observational evidence for dark matter is anything but subtle. Galaxy rotation curves are a quite spectacular way to show this effect at work, as I explained above. We also have the famous bullet cluster, a merger between clusters of galaxies where gravitational lensing shows a large amount of mass is found in the non-luminous parts. Another dramatic demonstration. Anyone telling you that the effects which justify the existence of dark matter are "subtle" is not being very thruthful. I mean, there's nothing subtle about galaxies smashing into each other...

So in short, dark matter doesn't have to be all that exotic and the evidence for it is quite easy to observe. So what's the big deal? Why do peole dislike it so much? people bring up the ether example, but they tend to forget about all the other particles we predicted and then later discovered...