Monsters at the Heart of Galaxy Formation
| dc.creator | Kormendy, John | |
| dc.date | 2000-07-26 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T01:54:33Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T01:54:33Z | |
| dc.description | Surveys with the Hubble Space Telescope find supermassive black holes (BHs) of 10**6 to 10**9.5 solar masses in every galaxy that has an elliptical-galaxy-like "bulge" component. BHs appear to be standard equipment in galaxy bulges. At the 2000 June meeting of the American Astronomical Society, two groups announced the discovery of a tight correlation between BH mass and the global velocity dispersion of stars in the host galaxy bulge (astro-ph/0006053 and astro-ph/0006289). Also, BH mass scales with bulge mass; the median BH mass fraction is 0.15 % of the bulge mass. In contrast, BH mass does not scale with disk properties. Pure disk galaxies - ones that lack a bulge component - must have BH mass fractions that are much smaller than the BH mass fractions in bulges. These results imply a close connection between BH growth and bulge (but not disk) formation. Observations increasingly support the hypothesis that the major events that form a bulge or elliptical galaxy and the main growth phases of its BH - when it shone like a quasar - were the same events. These and other results are leading to a profound change in how astronomers view BHs. More than just exotica needed to explain rare active galactic nuclei, they are becoming an integral part of our understanding of galaxy formation. | |
| dc.description | 4 pages, 1 color figure, TeX, Science (Perspective), in press | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0007400 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0007400 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/1393 | |
| dc.subject | Astrophysics | |
| dc.title | Monsters at the Heart of Galaxy Formation | |
| dc.type | text |