Quasars tagged posts

Investigating the Contribution of Gamma-Ray Blazar Flares to Neutrino Flux

Fermi spots a record flare from blazar.
Caption: A new study suggests that high-energy neutrinos of blazars might be produced mainly during the gamma-ray flare phase.
Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/24662369@N07/19578977022)
License type: CC BY 2.0

Gamma-ray flares from blazars can be accompanied by high-energy neutrino emission. To better understand this phenomenon, an international research team has statistically analyzed 145 bright blazars. They constructed weekly binned light curves and utilized a Bayesian algorithm, finding that their sample was dominated by blazars with low flare duty cycles and energy fractions. The study suggests that high-energy neutrinos of blazars might be produced mainly during the flare phase.

Blazars ...

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Hidden Supermassive Black Holes reveal their Secrets through Radio Signals

An artist’s impression of a red quasar. Red quasars are enshrouded by gas and dust, which may get blown away by outflows from the supermassive black hole, eventually revealing a typical blue quasar.
Credit: S. Munro & L. Klindt
Licence: Attribution (CC BY 4.0)
I think this is the strongest evidence so far that red quasars are a key element in how galaxies evolve
Dr Victoria Fawcett

Astronomers have found a striking link between the amount of dust surrounding a supermassive black hole and the strength of the radio emission produced in extremely bright galaxies. The findings are published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The team of international astronomers, led by Newcastle University and Durham University, UK, used new data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), which is conducting a five year survey of large scale structure in the universe that will include optical spectra for ~3 million quasars; extremely bright galaxies powered by supermassive black holes...

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Cracking a Mystery of Massive Black Holes and Quasars with Supercomputer Simulations

Distribution of gas across scales, with the gas density increasing from purple to yellow. The top left panel shows a large region containing tens of galaxies (6 million light-years across). Subsequent panels zoom in progressively into the nuclear region of the most massive galaxy and down to the vicinity of the central supermassive black hole. Gas clumps and filaments fall from the inner edge of the central cavity occasionally feeding the black hole. Credit: Anglés-Alcázar et al. 2021, ApJ, 917, 53.
Distribution of gas across scales, with the gas density increasing from purple to yellow. The top left panel shows a large region containing tens of galaxies (6 million light-years across). Subsequent panels zoom in progressively into the nuclear region of the most massive galaxy and down to the vicinity of the central supermassive black hole. Gas clumps and filaments fall from the inner edge of the central cavity occasionally feeding the black hole.
(Credit: Anglés-Alcázar et al. 2021, ApJ, 917, 53.)

Cracking a mystery of massive black holes and quasars with supercomputer simulations. At the center of galaxies, like our own Milky Way, lie massive black holes surrounded by spinning gas...

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Digital Sky Survey maps the entire sky, providing new data to astronomers

The fifth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey is collecting data about our universe for Vanderbilt University astronomers and other project members to use to explore the formation of distant galaxies and supermassive black holes, and to map the Milky Way.

The SDSS-V will make full use of existing satellites, including NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission, to lead to new discoveries. Keivan Stassun, Stevenson Professor of Physics and Astronomy, is co-investigator of NASA TESS, which enabled the discovery of a newly formed exoplanet in June 2020. That discovery boosted the potential for a joint effort with SDSS data.

“SDSS-V will magnify the exoplanet discoveries from TESS, both retrospectively and prospectively,” Stassun said...

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