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Professor Jeffrey Hodgson Discovers a Correlation Between the Direction of Supermassive Black Hole Jets and Galaxy Morph 2025.03.27 458 |
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Professor Jeffrey Hodgson Discovers a Correlation Between the Direction of Supermassive Black Hole Jets and Galaxy Morphology, which is a Breakthrough in Galactic Evolution Research
Professor Jeffrey Hodgson, which is in the picture, from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Sejong University published research about the direction of jets emitted by supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies is closely related to the morphology of the galaxies themselves. The research was published on November 14, 2024, in Nature Astronomy, which is one of the most prestigious academic journals in the field of astronomy. The first author of the paper, who David Fernandez Gil, is a graduate student who came to Sejong University from Spain, and he conducted the research under the guidance of Professors Jeffrey Hodgson and Benjamin L'Huillier. Professor Hodgson served as the corresponding author. This study is expected to mark a significant milestone in regards to the investigation of galactic formation and evolution, which is one of the most critical areas of modern astronomy, by suggesting that supermassive black hole activity plays a vital role in regards to galactic evolution. The black holes observed by astronomers range from being relatively small, which include masses of a few to several dozen times that of the Sun, to supermassive black holes, which include billions of times of the Sun's mass. The structure of a black hole is relatively simple, and its distinguishing physical properties are limited to its mass and rotational angular velocity. Supermassive black holes with masses that range from millions to billions of times larger than that of the Sun are typically located at the centers of galaxies. These types of immense black holes may seem insignificant compared to the vast scale of galaxies, which are collections of hundreds of billions of stars. However, the situation drastically changes if the galaxy is newly formed or has merged with a nearby galaxy, which provides an abundance of gas around the supermassive black hole. This gas, which is under the powerful gravitational pull of the black hole, is set into violent motion, is approaching the speed of light, and forming an accretion disk. The process releases enormous amounts of energy in the form of light or powerful jets of matter that are expelled at speeds that are close to the speed of light, which are perpendicular to the accretion disk. These types of celestial objects are known as quasars. The energy emitted by a quasar, which is the galactic nucleus, can be hundreds of times greater than the combined luminosity of all the stars in its host galaxy. The light emitted by these extraordinarily bright quasars travels across billions or even tens of billions of light-years of intergalactic space in order to reach Earth. Astronomers rely heavily on quasars in order to study the composition and evolutionary processes of matter in intergalactic space for this reason. Quasars are believed to play a crucial role in regards to the formation and evolution of galaxies, but it has been challenging in order to obtain observational evidence that supports this hypothesis. The Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observational technique, which combines multiple radio telescopes to function as a single telescope with a diameter spanning thousands of kilometers, was used in order to determine the direction of the jets emitted by over 5,000 quasars. VLBI offers the highest spatial resolution among the observation methods, and it was also used by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team in order to capture the first image of a supermassive black hole in the Virgo Cluster galaxy M87. The research team, which was led by Professor Hodgson, statistically confirmed that the direction of quasar jets aligns with the axis that defines the morphology of the galaxy hosting the quasars. David Fernandez Gil, who is the first author of the study, shared his thoughts, “After more than two years of research, I’m deeply honored to have our paper published in one of the most prestigious journals in astronomy. I worked very hard, but this achievement would not have been possible without the guidance of Professors Jeffrey Hodgson and Benjamin L'Huillier from Sejong University as well as Professor Jacobo Asorey from the Complutense University of Madrid.” The discovery that the direction of jets from supermassive black holes, which comprise of around 0.1% of a galaxy’s total mass, is strongly correlated with the morphology of their host galaxies that provides compelling evidence that supermassive black holes play a pivotal role in regards to galactic evolution. This research has achieved groundbreaking advancements in the study of galactic evolution by applying cutting-edge observational techniques. |
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