Infrared interferometric approach on supermassive black holes and their binary structure

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16H05731
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 海外学術
• Research Field: Astronomy
• Research Institution: Kyoto Sangyo University
• Principal Investigator: KISHIMOTO Makoto 京都産業大学, 理学部, 准教授 (00733354)
• Research Collaborator: TEN BRUMMELAAR Theo ; HÖNIG Sebastian ; ANTONUCCI Robert ; MILLOUR Florentin
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 巨大ブラックホール系の構造 / 活動銀河中心核の物理 / 高空間分解能観測 / 光赤外干渉計

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Over the last 20 years, there has been a growing consensus that the central region of almost every galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole of mass ranging from a million to billion solar masses. A subset of these black holes are accreting significant mass from the surrounding interstellar region, and thus emitting strong radiation. The mass accretion or ejection processes in these objects, called active galactic nuclei (AGN), are believed to have a close relationship with the host galaxy’s formation and evolution. However, these processes and the AGN structure have not been well understood despite the long history of the studies. Here we have made significant effort on spatially resolving the structure using infrared long-baseline interferometry. The resolved structure shows unexpected, polar-elongated morphology at 10 light-year scales, and a long-sought, equatorial fast-rotating gas clouds at the inner 1 light-year scales.

Free Research Field

宇宙物理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

巨大ブラックホールを中心とする大質量降着構造の理解は，銀河の形成・進化，ひいては宇宙の構造形成の歴史の理解にとって大きな意味を持つ．これまで30年以上にわたって，巨大ブラックホールを取り巻く円盤状・赤道方向の構造が推測されてきたが，直接空間分解することで，10光年程度のスケールにおいては意外にも極方向のアウトフロー成分が卓越していることがわかってきた．また１光年程度のスケールにおいては，これまで推測されてきたとおり，円盤状の高速回転構造が直接見えてきた．これらは，活動銀河核の物理過程の理解を確実に進めるものである．