A group of astronomers under the leadership Naum arava from Virginia Polytechnic University (USA) with the help of "Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European southern Observatory discovered quasar with the most powerful ever seen jets - emissions of the substance from the vicinity of a black hole. He at least five times more powerful than any known predecessor, which seems to confirm the existence of heavy duty emissions for several years predicted by theorists.


Relativistic jet in the view of the artist (figure ESA).

Quasars are extremely bright luminous remote objects, a Central component of which are supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies. Many of them emit inside their galaxies gigantic jets of substance, which play a key role in the evolution of the latter. However, observed so far emissions from quasars were not as powerful as they were described by theorists, but because, apparently, could not play the role attributed to them.

New jet discovered in the area of quasar SDSS J1106+1939, the light from which it has spent on the journey to the Land 11.5 billion years. "We found the most impressive of known ejections from the quasar. Giant jet huge masses, "fountain" from the quasar SDSS J1106+1939, the power equivalent to the emission of at least two trillion. In other words, it is about 100 times more than the total capacity [of radiation] just the milky Way. This quasar is a real monster, " notes Naum Harav. - It was the first to measure this energy release, which is predicted by the theory.

Theorists have long believed that the influence of jets flying from the vicinity of a supermassive black holes on a particular galaxy, it is possible to explain a number of problems of modern cosmology. For example, the jets can determine the relationship of the mass of the galaxy with the mass of the Central black hole. Some attributed the jets and a reduced rate of star formation in Mature galaxies that prevents the emergence of a particularly large galaxies. However, all of these builds are still undermined the only weakness: a very powerful relativistic jets simply was not observed.

Jet-record emits approximately 400 Solar masses, and this substance is carried away from him with a speed of 8 000 km/S. Although the rate for relativistic jets is not a record (as is obvious from its name), its mass is so great that the total energy release is unique. In addition, the jet was discovered at a distance of 300 parsecs from produced it BH, so its initial speed was probably somewhat higher. Kinetic luminosity emitted by such jets of matter (it is the amount of energy quasar, convertible into transferred by the substance flow kinetic energy) is at least incredible 1046 erg/s, which is comparable with the energy of a supernova.

In addition SDSS J1106+1939, the group Mr. arava watched another quasar, SDSS J1512+1119, and found a particularly powerful release. Since both are typical examples of the widespread but relatively poorly studied so far types of quasars (with a broad absorption lines), the results obtained, apparently, is applicable to a significant number of bright quasars, scattered throughout the Universe. To test this, astronomers studying a dozen of similar objects.

The research report will soon appear in the Astrophysical Journal, and its Preprint available here.

Based on the materials of the European southern Observatory.