11/16/2018 Astronomers reveal supermassive black hole's intense magnetic field

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Home Astronomy & Space Astronomy April 16, 2015

Astronomers reveal supermassive black hole's intense magnetic

field
April 16, 2015, Chalmers University of Technology

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Astronomers from Chalmers University of Technology have used the giant

telescope Alma to reveal an extremely powerful magnetic field very close to a Gravitational waves from a merged
supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy. The results appear in the 17 hyper-massive neutron star Nov 14,
2018 26
April 2015 issue of the journal Science.

A team of five astronomers from Chalmers University of Technology have more »

revealed an extremely powerful magnetic field, beyond anything previously

detected in the core of a galaxy, very close to the event horizon of a
supermassive black hole. This new observation helps astronomers to Phys.org on Facebook
understand the structure and formation of these massive inhabitants of the
centres of galaxies, and the twin high-speed jets of plasma they frequently
eject from their poles.

Up to now only weak magnetic fields far from black holes—several light-years
away—had been probed. In this study, however, astronomers from Chalmers Email newsletter
University of Technology and Onsala Space Observatory in Sweden have
now used Alma to detect signals directly related to a strong magnetic field email Subscribe
very close to the event horizon of the supermassive black hole in a distant
galaxy named PKS 1830-211. This magnetic field is located precisely at the
place where matter is suddenly boosted away from the black hole in the form Relevant PhysicsForums posts
of a jet.

The team measured the strength of the magnetic field by studying the way in Was the universe is infinitely large at the big
bang? 1 hour ago
which light was polarised, as it moved away from the black hole.
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"Polarisation is an important property of light and is much used in daily life, for ago
example in sun glasses or 3D glasses at the cinema," says Ivan Marti-Vidal,
Not understanding the behaviour of the vis-viva
lead author of this work. equation 17 hours ago

https://phys.org/news/2015-04-astronomers-reveal-supermassive-black-hole.html 1/6
11/16/2018 Astronomers reveal supermassive black hole's intense magnetic field
"When produced naturally, polarisation can be used to measure magnetic Barnard's Star, 6 Light-Years Away, May Have
fields, since light changes its polarisation when it travels through a Cold SuperEarth Nov 14, 2018
magnetised medium. In this case, the light that we detected with Alma had
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been travelling through material very close to the black hole, a place full of
highly magnetised plasma." Accretion rate onto a WD over time (relation)
Nov 13, 2018
The astronomers applied a new analysis technique that they had developed More from Astronomy and Astrophysics
to the Alma data and found that the direction of polarisation of the radiation
coming from the centre of PKS 1830-211 had rotated.

Magnetic fields introduce Faraday rotation, which makes the polarisation

rotate in different ways at different wavelengths. The way in which this
rotation depends on the wavelength tells us about the magnetic field in the
region.

The Alma observations were at an effective wavelength of about 0.3

millimetres, the shortest wavelengths ever used in this kind of study. This
allows the regions very close to the central black hole to be probed. Earlier
investigations were at much longer radio wavelengths. Only light of millimetre
wavelengths can escape from the region very close to the black hole; longer
wavelength radiation is absorbed.

"We have found clear signals of polarisation rotation that are hundreds of
times higher than the highest ever found in the Universe," says Sebastien
Muller, co-author of the paper. "Our discovery is a giant leap in terms of
observing frequency, thanks to the use of Alma, and in terms of distance to
the black hole where the magnetic field has been probed—of the order of
only a few light-days from the event horizon. These results, and future
studies, will help us understand what is really going on in the immediate
vicinity of supermassive black holes."

Explore further: ALMA probes mysteries of jets from giant black

holes

More information: Science on 17 April 2015, vol 348, issue 6232

www.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/ … 1126/science.aaa1784

Journal reference: Science 6166 shares

Provided by: Chalmers University of Technology feedback to editors

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