When we examined the Arp work in the Arp’s Evidence series we discussed his concept that
galaxies seem to eject material outwards which may then later form into Quasars and overtime
develop into normal galaxies. It is believed that super massive blackholes sit at the centre
of these galaxies. These should suck in all the material around them not eject material.
Astronomers however have seen an event where a Blackhole seems to have ejected its entire
corona full of plasma outwards. Let’s dig a little deeper and see what we can uncover.
The mainstream concept of a black hole is that it is a super dense object where gravity
becomes strong enough that nothing can escape, not even light. As material gets pulled in
towards the black hole it is believed that an accretion disk forms around it. This disk
will heat up, at the very centre of the disk, close to the black hole, a region of very
hot electrons - with temperatures of around a billion degrees, forms and is called the
corona. It is known for producing high-energy X-rays that stream into space. From observations
we can see that many of these objects also emit beams of particles and undergo periodic
flaring events.
When astronomers were observing Markarian 335 they were able to capture one of these
flaring events. Markarian 335 is a Seyfert Galaxy located 324 million light years away
in the constellation of Pegasus. More interesting was the fact that they think they have witnessed
the blackhole ejecting the entire corona during this event. It suggested to them that blackholes
send out beams of X-rays when their surrounding coronas shoot or launch away from the black
holes. They think this may be confirmation that the coronas are present above and just
below the rotation axis of the black hole.
So how do they know that the corona moved at all? They believe the corona gives off
X-ray light that has a slightly different spectrum than the light coming from the disk
around the black hole. By analysing the spectrum from Markarian 335 they believe that they
can tell that the corona X-ray light had brightened… and that this brightening was due to the motion
of the corona. This is an effect like a doppler shift that occurs when material is moving
at very high speeds close to the speed of light.
By putting the pieces together they can link the emission of the X-ray flare to the corona
being ejected.
At this stage though it is important to point out that the source of the X-rays they call
the corona is still a mystery and they have absolutely no clue what causes the ejection
of the corona in the first place.
So lets first discuss the corona. Here they can identify two different spectrums, one
which appears more energetic than the other. The emissions they detect are X-ray emissions.
They believe that this is composed of direct coronal emissions, reflection and broadened
iron lines.
So let’s take a little step back. Arp’s view was that material was ejected from these
massive blackholes and may eventually form Quasars and then slowly evolve into companion
galaxies. He examined many many examples of this and saw that they slowed as they moved
further away. Here we see material being ejected at very high speeds. We are probably not seeing
any type of intrinsic redshift in the material at this point as they only report on a relativistic
Doppler boosting, making it appear brighter. It would be interesting to observe what happens
to this material overtime.
It is also important to realise that the formation of the beams out of black holes is not really
well understood. There are some theories about the magnetic field being warped around the
spinning blackhole and this causes electrons and positrons to flow along these field lines.
When they observed this corona ejection event they think that the corona formed into a beam
before being ejected.
All of this also reminds me of Eric Lerner’s plasmoid quasar model. Here plasma is condensed
from a very large area into a very tight and compact area. This stores vast amounts of
energy in a very small space. His model has this incoming material forming into two beams
from either end. These beams would not be continuous but would turn on and off over
a period of time. He later modified this concept to allow for this to work within a galaxy
not just a quasar. Here he saw that new plasma would periodically be drawn in forming a new
plasmoid which would then last for a certain period of time, die out and then the whole
process would repeat. This concept was initially discovered in the laboratory where he created
much smaller versions of these plasmoids. Here there would be no corona, instead this
is simply the plasma in the torus in glow mode. This may be what we are seeing in the
famous M87 image.
So could this explain what we are seeing here? Are the flares we see in these events a consequence
of the plasmoid reconnecting to a different incoming filament? Does this spark a more
violent outburst which would also be accompanied by additional X-rays? This could explain the
changes in brightness we see for the corona of a blackhole. Are these just switching events
some maybe larger than others?
So what can we takeaway from this story? Firstly this is evidence of these strange objects
ejecting material outwards along the axis of rotation which matches with Arp ejection
idea. Could this be a reconnection event in Lerner’s model then eject material during
this process. One word of caution here is that they are not actually observing the motion
of this material directly, it is inferred from what they think is relativistic Doppler
Boost but there is evidence of other material being ejected from galactic cores that we
have covered in the Arp Evidence series. Secondly the brightening event and flaring may indeed
provide evidence that this is actually a plasmoid where the incoming filaments are reconnecting.