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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.

13 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Might want to change your diet by master_kaos · · Score: 3, Funny

    After switching my diet, my blackhole no longer bulks up my dark matter.

  2. Dark matter only interacts gravitationally? by Mariner28 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Dark matter only interacts gravitationally with baryonic matter, right? If so, then I'd think it's pretty obvious that dark matter would be a major constituent of a galaxy's supermassive black hole. But then, according to Sheldon Cooper, I have only a Masters' Degree - in engineering, at that - so what do I know?

    --
    "A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
    1. Re:Dark matter only interacts gravitationally? by rrohbeck · · Score: 3, Informative

      Dark matter might be amassed slower than ordinary matter though because it's not slowed down by the accretion disk and similar processes that get rid of momentum. IOW, a particle has to be headed directly into the event horizon, otherwise it'll miss and continue to orbit.

  3. Re:Jump That Gun by Skarjak · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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...

  4. Dark matter = Black hole excrement? by MTEK · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Could it be that when energy/matter is ingested by a black hole it gets squeezed beyond the plank scale and into a dimension that is different than the space-time dimension we perceive; a dimension unconstrained by the black hole's gravity well -- effectively allowing the consumed energy/matter to exhaust back out into the galaxy as a different form?

  5. Re:One big equation wich equals zero by rogoshen1 · · Score: 2

    Where's my latte dude? get back to work.

  6. Re:Jump That Gun by stevelinton · · Score: 3, Informative

    Know is a tricky word, but there is plenty of evidence that most of the dark matter is not baryonic. The proportions of light elements formed at the end of the big bang gives a contstaint on the baryon density of the universe at the time, as do the ripples in the cosmic microwave background (which reveal the balance between radiation pressure and gravity in the early universe and tell us that most of the mass did not interact with photons at all). The bullet cluster is another piece of evidence. The stars in the colliding galaxies interacted with one another and with dust and merged into one bigger galaxy, but something, detectable by its gravitational lensing of galaxies beyond it, went straight through. It's hard to see how brown dwarves would have done that.

  7. Dark matter only interacts gravitationally? by slickwillie · · Score: 2

    So where are all the dark matter black holes?

  8. Re:Jump That Gun by Skarjak · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  9. This comment section makes my head hurt by Skarjak · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:This comment section makes my head hurt by david_thornley · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    2. Re:This comment section makes my head hurt by Skarjak · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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...

    3. Re:This comment section makes my head hurt by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 2

      Why is it that

      Self-selected readership who, at one point in their lives, were probably complimented and/or tormented for being intelligent, thus making it a component of their personality.

      Preconceived notions which survive evidential disproving, making it easy to discard any summary based on the headline, or any article based on the summary.

      Also, a rotating vocal minority who read a few words and immediately have to type their thoughts, because no one could possibly understand the topic more than them - as evidenced by their grade school experiences.

      Welcome to dotslash.

      It is exceedingly difficult for most people to routinely consider that other people exist outside of their own experience, and the amount of personal anecdote offered here as a rebuttal of statistics is a testament to just that sort of short mindedness.

      In other words, these people are human, and flawed in the same ways that humans are. They just don't realize it unless you point it out in sometimes increasingly caustic replies depending on the nature of their transgression.