Slashdot Mirror


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.

4 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. 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."
  2. 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...

  3. 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?

  4. 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.