Cosmological evolution of supermassive black holes in galactic centers unveiled by hard X-ray observations

We review the current understanding of the cosmological evolution of supermassive black holes in galactic centers elucidated by X-ray surveys of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Hard X-ray observations at energies above 2 keV are the most efficient and complete tools to find “obscured” AGNs, which are dominant populations among all AGNs. Combinations of surveys with various flux limits and survey area have enabled us to determine the space number density and obscuration properties of AGNs as a function of luminosity and redshift. The results have essentially solved the origin of the X-ray background in the energy band below ∼10 keV. The downsizing (or anti-hierarchical) evolution that more luminous AGNs have the space-density peak at higher redshifts has been discovered, challenging theories of galaxy and black hole formation. Finally, we summarize unresolved issues on AGN evolution and prospects for future X-ray missions.     

黑洞照亮宇宙——银河系中心黑洞及其物理意义

2020年度诺贝尔物理学奖颁发给为黑洞和超大质量致密天体做出突出贡献的三位科学家,他们分别从理论和观测上提供了令人信服的证明和证据。他们的工作打开了理解宇宙中大质量天体命运的窗口。人们普遍相信超大质量黑洞存在于每一个星系的中心,是这些黑洞照亮了再电离时期的宇宙,也是它们为揭开宇宙膨胀历史、暗能量宇宙演化性质、纳赫兹低频引力波等诸多谜团提供了十分强大的工具。预计未来5年内,反响映射和GRAVITY/VLTI联合观测将在以黑洞研究为支撑的领域取得重大进展。     

Cosmological black holes: A black hole in the Einstein-de Sitter universe

As an example of a dynamical cosmological black hole, a spacetime that describes an expanding black hole in the asymptotic background of the Einstein-de Sitter universe is constructed. The black hole is primordial in the sense that it forms ab initio with the big bang singularity and its expanding event horizon is represented by a conformal Killing horizon. The metric representing the black hole spacetime is obtained by applying a time dependent conformal transformation on the Schwarzschild metric, such that the result is an exact solution with a matter content described by a two-fluid source. Physical quantities such as the surface gravity and other effects like perihelion precession, light bending and circular orbits are studied in this spacetime and compared to their counterparts in the gravitational field of the isolated Schwarzschild black hole. No changes in the structure of null geodesics are recorded, but significant differences are obtained for timelike geodesics, particularly an increase in the perihelion precession and the non-existence of circular timelike orbits. The solution is expressed in the Newman-Penrose formalism.     

超亮X射线源与中等质量黑洞

超亮X射线源是在邻近星系中发现的一类特殊的辐射X射线的天体.它们类似银河系中的黑洞双星,但却具有更高的亮度,因此可能包含更高质量的黑洞,即所谓的中等质量黑洞.中等质量黑洞并不像恒星级质量黑洞一样,可以是大质量恒星演化末期核塌缩的产物,因此在天体物理中具有重要意义.文章描述了超亮X射线源的一些基本性质,综述了近年来对这些源多波段观测的重要结果,以及这些结果对这些天体本质的暗示.     

Fermion tunneling from squashed black holes in the GSdel universe and charged Kaluza-Klein space-time

This paper is devoted to the investigation the fermion tunneling radiation of squashed black holes in the G6del universe and charged Kaluza-Klein space-time. For black holes with different dimensions, establishing a set of appropriate matrices γμ for the general covariant Dirac equation plays an important role in the semi-classical tunneling method. By constructing two sets of γμ matrices, we have successfully derived the tunneling probability and Hawking temperature of the black holes.     

Pre-low-mass X-ray binaries containing a black hole: investigating a detection mechanism

This work investigates the feasibility of detecting close, detached, black hole-red dwarf binaries, which are expected to be evolutionary precursors of low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). Although this pre-low-mass X-ray binary (pre-LMXB) phase of evolution is predicted theoretically, as yet no such systems have been identified observationally. The calculations presented here suggest that the X-ray luminosity of black hole wind accretion in a pre-LMXB system could exceed the intrinsic X-ray luminosity of the red dwarf secondary star, thereby providing a detection mechanism. However, there is significant uncertainty regarding the efficiency of the conversion of gravitational potential energy to X-ray luminosity resulting from accretion onto a black hole, for example energy may be lost via advection across the event horizon. Still, sources with X-ray luminosities greater than that expected for a red dwarf star, but whose positions coincide with that of a red dwarf would represent candidate pre-LMXB systems. These candidates should be surveyed for the radial velocity shifts that would occur as a result of the orbital motion of a red dwarf star within a close binary system containing a black hole.      

黑洞喷流研究进展

黑洞喷流是黑洞吸积系统中广泛存在的、非常壮观的天文现象。它的形成问题一直是高能天体物理中非常重要同时也是非常困难的研究课题。近年来,主要由于大型计算机数值模拟的快速发展以及观测数据的积累,这一研究领域取得了快速发展。文章将介绍这方面的进展。     

The simplest black holes

A relativistic gravitational theory in (1 + 1) dimensions is presented which exhibits many of the qualitative features of (3 + 1)-dimensional general relativity. The field equations are simple enough for undergraduates to solve yet rich enough in structure to form a useful pedagogical example for exploring the qualitative features of relativistic gravitation. Black hole solutions to the field equations of the theory are derived and its relationship to Newtonian gravity is discussed in detail.     

Fermion tunneling from squashed black holes in the Gdel universe and charged Kaluza Klein space time

This paper is devoted to the investigation the fermion tunneling radiation of squashed black holes in the Gödel universe and charged Kaluza--Klein space--time. For black holes with different dimensions, establishing a set of appropriate matrices γ^μ for the general covariant Dirac equation plays an important role in the semi-classical tunneling method. By constructing two sets of γ^μ matrices, we have successfully derived the tunneling probability and Hawking temperature of the black holes.     

作为宇宙信使的X射线

60年前,里卡多·贾科尼团队用探空火箭首次探测到了来自太阳系以外的X射线辐射,从此打开了人类探索宇宙的一个全新的窗口。与我们所熟悉的可见光天空不同,在“看不见”的X射线宇宙,明亮的发光天体涵盖了黑洞、中子星、白矮星等致密天体,星系团和星系中弥漫的大量不可见的高温气体,以及各种剧烈的灾变事件。它们代表着宇宙中最为奇特的天体和极端的物理条件,如极强引力场、极强磁场和极高温。文章重点介绍最有代表性的X射线源,包括中子星和黑洞X射线双星、超大质量黑洞和活动星系核、星系团,以及伽马暴、超新星和潮汐瓦解恒星事件等爆发天体。     

Area spectrum of slowly rotating black holes

We investigate the area spectrum for rotating black holes which are Kerr and BTZ black holes. For slowly rotating black holes, we use the Maggiore's idea combined with Kunstatter's method to derive their area spectra, which are equally spaced.     

Fragile black holes

The AdS/CFT correspondence may give a new way of understanding field theories in extreme conditions, as in the quark–gluon plasma phase of quark matter. The correspondence normally involves asymptotically AdS black holes with dual field theories which are defined on locally flat boundary spacetimes; the implicit assumption is that the distortions of spacetime which occur under extreme conditions do not affect the field theory in any unexpected way. However, AdS black holes are [to varying degrees] fragile, in the sense that they become unstable to stringy effects when their event horizons are sufficiently distorted. This implies that field theories on curved backgrounds may likewise be unstable in a suitable sense. We investigate this phenomenon, focussing on the “fragility” of AdS₅ black holes with flat event horizons. We find that, when they are distorted, these black holes are always unstable in string theory. This may have consequences for the detailed structure of the quark matter phase diagram at extreme values of the spacetime curvature.     

Nonthermal effect of dilatonic black holes

The quantum nonthermal effect of the spherically symmetric and rotating dilatonic black holes is studied. A crossing of the positive and negative Dirac energy of particles occurs near dilatonic black holes. We find that the dilaton coupling parameter α affects the energy of spontaneous radiant particles. The energy of particles decreases when the coupling parameter α increases.     

On the systematic bias in the estimation of black hole masses in active galactic nuclei

In this report,we find the MBH estimated from the formalism of Wang et al.are more consistent with those from the MBH-σ relation than those from previous single-epoch mass estimators,using a large sample of AGNs.Furthermore,we examine the diferences between the line widths of Hβ and Mg Ⅱ in detail by comparing their line profiles.The flux around the line core and that in the wing of both Hβ and Mg Ⅱ show an opposite variation tendency,which indicates the BLR is multi-componential.The contribution of the wing makes the FWHM deviate fromσline,and thus bias the MBH estimated from previous single-epoch mass estimators.Thus the correction on the formalism suggested by Wang et al.is crucial to MBH estimation.     

Radio core dominance of Fermi/LAT-detected AGNs

We present a sample of 4388 AGNs with available radio core-dominance parameters—defined as the ratio of the core flux densities to the extended ones, R = S_core/S_ext.—which includes 630 Fermi-detected AGNs from the fourth source catalog(4FGL) of the Fermi Large Area Telescope(Fermi/LAT);the rest are non-Fermi-detected AGNs. In our sample, 584 blazars are Fermi-detected and 1310 are not. The sample also contains other subclasses, such as Seyferts, Fanaroff-Riley I/II galaxies, and normal galaxies.We investigate various properties of the Fermi-detected and non-Fermi-detected AGNs by using core-dominance parameters,capitalizing on a previous study which showed that R is a good indicator of beaming. We then calculate radio spectral indices for the whole sample, and adopt γ-ray-photon indices for the Fermi AGNs from the 4FGL catalog to discuss the properties of different subclasses. We obtain a relation between the core-dominance parameters and the radio spectral indices for both Fermi and non-Fermi sources, assuming a two-component model in the radio band. Our previous study ruled out the assumption that the core-dominance parameters and radio spectral indices are quite different for different AGN subclasses. This holds not only for Fermi sources but also for non-Fermi sources. In particular, R is, on average, greater for the former AGNs than for the latter.In this study, we enlarge our sample with available values of R to 4388 AGNs, and the obtained conclusions are consistent with our previous study. We assume that the same two-component model holds for the γ-ray band as for the radio band, and therefore,adopt the same relation between the core-dominance parameters and the γ-ray-photon indices for Fermi AGNs. Our fitting results indicate that the γ-ray emissions of Fermi blazars originate mainly from the jet, and therefore, we conclude that the Fermi blazars are beamed.     

Kerr black holes are not fragile

Certain AdS black holes are “fragile”, in the sense that, if they are deformed excessively, they become unstable to a fundamental non-perturbative stringy effect analogous to Schwinger pair-production [of branes]. Near-extremal topologically spherical AdS-Kerr black holes, which are natural candidates for string-theoretic models of the very rapidly rotating black holes that have actually been observed to exist, do represent a very drastic deformation of the AdS-Schwarzschild geometry. One therefore has strong reason to fear that these objects might be “fragile”, which in turn could mean that asymptotically flat rapidly rotating black holes might be fragile in string theory. Here we show that this does not happen: despite the severe deformation implied by near-extremal angular momenta, brane pair-production around topologically spherical AdS-Kerr-Newman black holes is always suppressed.     

Fermionic wigs for BTZ black holes

We compute the wig for the BTZ black hole, namely the complete non-linear solution of supergravity equations with all fermionic zero modes. We use a “gauge completion” method starting from _AdS3${\mathit{AdS}}_3$ Killing spinors to generate the gravitinos fields associated to the BH and we compute the back-reaction on the metric. Due to the anticommutative properties of the fermionic hairs the resummation of these effects truncates at some order. We illustrate the technique proposed in a precedent paper in a very explicit and analytical form. We also compute the mass, the angular momentum and other charges with their corrections.     

Entropy of three-dimensional BTZ black holes

~~Entropy of three-dimensional BTZ black holes~~