In a recent breakthrough, researchers have successfully modeled the accretion of luminous black holes, the process by which matter falls into a black hole, marking a major “turning point” in black hole research.
The team led by scientists from the Institute for Advanced Study and the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Flatiron Institute used the most powerful supercomputers to calculate the flow of matter into black holes.
According to findings published in The Astrophysical Journal, the simulation consistently reproduces behavior observed in real-world telescopes, especially in ultraluminous X-ray sources and X-ray binaries.
“This is the first time we have been able to see what happens when the key physical processes involved in black hole accretion are carefully included. Most excitingly, our simulations now reproduce remarkably consistent behavior in black hole systems seen in the sky,” said lead author Lizhong Zhang.
The research also focused on “stellar mass” black holes, which have about ten times the mass of the Sun. Unlike the supermassive black holes that change slowly over time, these stellar-mass black holes tend to change over minutes and hours, giving researchers the opportunity to study changes in real time.
The new model also allowed astronomers to study how matter spirals inward and forms turbulent and radiation-dominated disks around stellar-mass black holes.
Based on the simulations, the team also observed strong winds flowing outward, leading to the formation of powerful jets.
What this study means for future research
The framework is not just limited to studying small black holes. In addition to stellar-mass black holes, the simulations could be useful in understanding supermassive black holes and their central role in shaping galaxies.
Future research could also shed light on how radiation interacts with matter at different temperatures and densities.
According to co-author James Stone, “What makes this project unique is both the time and effort it has taken to develop the applied mathematics and software capable of modeling these complex systems, and having a very large allocation of the world’s largest supercomputers to perform these calculations.”
