Decoding Supermassive Black Holes: New Findings on Their Spin and Growth
supermassive black holes has shed new light on the relationship between their spin rates and their formation history. “Mass is challenging to measure, and spin is even harder,” he explained. Despite the difficulties, accurately determining these numbers is crucial for understanding black hole evolution.
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Fries and his team from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s Reverberation Mapping Project embarked on an ambitious mission to measure black hole spin rates over billions of years. “We examined massive black holes at the centers of galaxies, from the present back to seven billion years ago,” Fries noted. Their research also involved detailed observations of accretion disks, regions near black holes where matter accumulates and heats as it spirals inward. Measuring these disks helps scientists estimate the spin rates by observing how matter behaves as it approaches the black hole.
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The survey’s results were surprising. Fries explained, “The spin rates were too high to be explained solely by galaxy mergers. This suggests that many black holes grew primarily by steadily absorbing surrounding material, which increased their rotation speed.”
During a recent American Astronomical Society meeting, Fries shared his findings,
