New research suggests that three space telescopes could form a powerful triad capable of searching for supermassive black holes earlier in the history of the cosmos than ever detected before.
If the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Euclid telescope, and NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman) can detect black holes with masses millions or billions of times higher than that of the sun when the universe was less than 270 million years old, it would change our view of cosmic evolution. Such a detection could also solve a dilemma that one of these telescopes revealed to astronomers.
Since it began operations in 2022, the JWST has been detecting supermassive black holes that exist when the universe was less than 1 billion years old, with the most ancient example being the black hole JADES-GS-z14-0. This is problematic because using the models that existed prior to 2022, supermassive black holes should take at least 1 billion years to reach supermassive status via mergers and the consumption of matter. This has led to the proposal of alternative models of black hole growth that could allow these cosmic titans to get a head start in growth terms.
“Supermassive black holes forming at later times have more time to grow through accretion and mergers, and these processes erase their birth signatures,” research author Muhammad A. Latif of the United Arab Emirates University told Space.com. “Supermassive black holes forming at such an early age suggest that they were born massive.”
One possible scenario that would allow supermassive black holes to grow so large so rapidly suggests that instead of early black holes forming when the first generation of massive stars died, they formed directly when vast overdense patches of cosmic gas and dust collapsed.
“Models of BH formation suggest that under certain conditions, such as dense cold streams of gas, halo mergers, or intense ultraviolet radiation bombardment, gas clouds can catastrophically collapse into massive black holes without forming normal stars,” Latif explained. “This model is known as the ‘direct collapse scenario,’ and massive black holes are born with masses of 10,000 to 100,000 times the mass of our sun.”
By cutting out the stellar middlemen, this “direct collapse scenario” would see black holes form before the first stars die, vastly cutting the time needed to grow. Additionally, it removes the mass restrictions on these first black holes, restrictions that were imposed in other theories by the fact that black holes can only be as massive as the cores of the most massive stars.
This means that the merger process that leads to the creation of supermassive black holes could begin with so-called “heavy seed” black holes caused directly by collapsing gas and dust, more massive than any stellar mass black holes created by dying stars could ever be.
“Direct collapse black holes at earlier times can further grow by accreting the material from their surroundings, while black holes forming at later times do not have much fuel to grow,” Latif added.
However, if this direct collapse scenario is right, Latif and co-author Daniel Whalen of the University of Portsmouth suggest that the direct collapse of gas and dust could have birthed direct collapse black holes as early as 170 to 180 million years after the Big Bang. Thus, we should be able to find supermassive black holes even earlier than 290 million years after the Big Bang. In other words, at redshifts of z=15 or greater.
“Detecting a supermassive black hole at z=15 would tell us about the origin of supermassive black holes,” Latif explained. “It would mean that black holes are born massive with masses mentioned above, and would almost rule out their stellar origin.”
How Roman and Euclid could point the JWST in the right direction
So if those early direct collapse black holes are out there, why hasn’t the JWST spotted them? It certainly isn’t because it lacks the observing power; maybe the $10 billion space telescope just needs help from space telescopes with a wider focus.
“In principle, JWST can observe such black holes, but the area of the sky JWST is probing is much smaller than the upcoming Roman Space Telescope and Euclid,” Latif said. “Their synergy is key to studying supermassive black holes at early times. Roman and Euclid have fields of view that are 100 times wider than that of the JWST and therefore can detect more early black holes.
“The high resolution of JWST can help to study detailed structures of black hole host galaxies and confirm their presence by performing spectroscopy. Such observations will give us a detailed picture of how and under what conditions black holes form and grow.”
The three telescopes are all capable of observing the universe in infrared wavelengths of light, meaning that they complement each other in that respect, too.
The team performed simulations of the synergy between the JWST, Euclid, and Roman, and was impressed by the effectiveness of this telescope triple threat.
“We were amazed by the fact that these observatories can detect about 100 black holes just 250 million years after the Big Bang,” Latif added. “Such detection would greatly help to constrain black hole formation models and provide an unprecedented view of the early universe.”
Latif explained that in the near future, he and Whalen intend to run simulations that track the growth history of early direct collapse black holes after their birth.
“Having such a detailed growth history, we can make better predictions for Roman, Euclid, and JWST, including how massive these black holes can become and how many of them can be detected with upcoming surveys,” Latif concluded.
The team’s research is available on the website of the University of Portsmouth.
www.space.com (Article Sourced Website)
#James #Webb #Euclid #Roman #space #telescopes #team #hunt #supermassive #black #holes #dawn #time