An actively accreting massive black hole in the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10

Details An actively accreting massive black hole in the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10 An actively accreting massive black hole in the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10

2011-01-06

arxiv.org/abs/1101.1309v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics

Published in Nature. Advance Online Publication (AOP) on http://www.nature.com/nature

Scientific paper

10.1038/nature09724

Supermassive black holes are now thought to lie at the heart of every giant galaxy with a spheroidal component, including our own Milky Way. The birth and growth of the first 'seed' black holes in the earlier Universe, however, is observationally unconstrained and we are only beginning to piece together a scenario for their subsequent evolution. Here we report that the nearby dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10 contains a compact radio source at the dynamical centre of the galaxy that is spatially coincident with a hard X-ray source. From these observations, we conclude that Henize 2-10 harbours an actively accreting central black hole with a mass of approximately one million solar masses. This nearby dwarf galaxy, simultaneoulsy hosting a massive black hole and an extreme burst of star formation, is analogous in many ways to galaxies in the infant Universe during the early stages of black-hole growth and galaxy mass assembly. Our results confirm that nearby star-forming dwarf galaxies can indeed form massive black holes, and that by implication so can their primordial counterparts. Moreover, the lack of a substantial spheroidal component in Henize 2-10 indicates that supermassive black-hole growth may precede the build-up of galaxy spheroids.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

An actively accreting massive black hole in the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10 does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with An actively accreting massive black hole in the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and An actively accreting massive black hole in the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10 will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-482917