New research suggests that dark matter decay can help black holes grow to massive sizes in the early universe. If true, this could help explain some of the puzzling observations of the universe made by the James Webb Space Telescope.
With the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) beginning to send data back to Earth in the summer of 2022, the discovery of a supermassive black hole with millions, or even billions, of solar time is about 500 million years old. in life. of the 13.8-billion-year-old cosmos has baffled scientists. That’s because it will take minimum 1 billion years for black holes to “extreme conditions.”
One theory to explain how early black holes start is that they were born directly from a large cloud of dust. However, this new research shows that dark matter, which is the deepest part of the universe, is what drives the system.
“The formation of supermassive black holes is a mystery. Finding a supermassive black hole in the age of the Earth less than 1 billion years is like finding a fossil among dinosaur bones in the Jurassic sedimentary rocks,” researcher Alexander Kusenko. , an astronomer at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), told Space.com. “These observations require different interpretations of supermassive black holes.
“We discovered that radiation from dark decay can cause some large clouds to collapse into supermassive black holes, solving the mystery of their origin.”
Affected: Dark matter can play a ‘matchmaker’ for supermassive black holes
Solve a mystery with another mystery
Dark matter is now considered one of the most outstanding mysteries in physics because, although it is about 85% of the matter in the universe, scientists do not know what it is.
Researchers know that dark matter cannot be made from the same “stuff” that makes up the atoms that make up the normal elements in stars, planets, moons, asteroids and our bodies. That’s because dark matter doesn’t seem to interact with electromagnetic radiation (light), whereas electrons, protons and neutrons actually do.
And the lack of relationship with light is frustrating and makes the dark matter effectively invisible to our eyes, and scientists are able to infer its presence through its relationship with gravity and the effect of this relationship with common words and light.
Dark matter may not interact with light, but one of the proposed properties of this material in some forms is related to the decay of other uncharged elements – which release photons, elements that is the essence of light. The team speculates that this radiation may be the missing part of a supermassive black hole.
Kusenko explained, “Gravity can ignite a cloud of gas and cause it to collapse, so it is possible that a cloud of gas can lead to a black hole the size of a million suns.” “Of course, this doesn’t happen because gravity works on all distance scales, and it causes a small part of a large cloud to collapse before the whole cloud has a chance to collapse. So instead of one big black hole, we end up with a bunch of little clouds.”
He added that if there was something to prevent the action of gravity at a distance without affecting the collapse at a distance, this could trigger a “direct collapse” of large gas masses into a supermassive black hole. One thing that can counteract gravity is pressure.
Kusenko continued, “If the gas cloud remains hot for a long time, it will not break up into small halos because the hot gas is under high pressure, and force to resist the pull of gravity,” Kusenko continued. “This is true as long as the temperature is high. However, if the gas cools, the pressure decreases, gravity can prevail in many small areas, which collapse into matter massive ones before gravity has a chance to pull the entire cloud into a black hole.”
And rejection occurs because although the majority of gas in the early universe contains hydrogen atoms; Stars haven’t had a chance to form heavy objects and they are dispersed by supernova explosions. Many of these hydrogen atoms will bounce off each other relentlessly like billiard balls unless they are bound into molecules with a degree of rotational energy that can be excited by atomic collisions.
“The excited molecule can remove the energy and return to its original state, ready for another interaction with the hydrogen atom. The hydrogen molecules become more relaxed as they apply energy to heats up and dissipates it. Therefore, the stronger the hydrogen, the faster it cools,” added Kusenko. “Dark matter particles can decay, producing radiation, which can dissociate [or break down] a molecule of hydrogen.”
Therefore, light rays from decaying dark matter can give large clouds in the early universe time to collapse and form the first supermassive black holes.
“If that happens, it’s possible for hot gas to collapse into a supermassive black hole,” Kusenko added.
Should this be true, what, if anything, does it tell us about the dark matter itself?
“There are two possibilities: either dark matter can burn more slowly, or dark matter can have a small component that burns faster, while other dark matter is more stable,” Kusenko said. “In any case, the characteristics of the radiation necessary for making black holes tell us the extent of the decaying dark matter. This can help to detect or exclude this matter.
The group’s research was published on Aug. 27 in the journal Physical Review Letters.
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