Astronomers Use “X-Ray Magnifier” to Improve View of Distant Black Holes

• Astronomers have used an “x-ray magnifier” to study a black hole system at the beginning of the Universe.
• The amplification and magnification of light by an intermediate galaxy allowed the detection of two distant X-ray emitting objects.
• The objects are either two growing supermassive black holes or one such black hole and a jet.
• This result helps us understand the growth of black holes in the early Universe and the possible existence of multiple black hole systems.

A new technique using NasaChandra’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has given astronomers an unprecedented glimpse of a black hole system in the early Universe. This provides astronomers with a way to examine faint and distant X-ray objects in more detail than was previously possible.

Astronomers used an alignment in space that shows a “gravitational lens” of light from two objects located nearly 12 billion light years away. An artist’s illustration in the main part of this graphic shows how the light paths of these distant objects are bent and amplified by a galaxy along the line of sight between Earth and objects.

The objects in this latest Chandra study are part of a system called MG B2016 + 112. The X-rays detected by Chandra were emitted by this system when the Universe was only 2 billion years old from its current age of nearly 14 billion years.

Previous studies of the MG B2016 + 112 radio emissions suggested that the system consisted of two separate supermassive black holes, each of which could also produce a jet. Using a gravitational lens model based on the radio data, Schwartz and his colleagues concluded that the three x-ray sources they detected from the MG B2016 + 112 system must have resulted from the lens of two separate objects.

X-ray light from one of the objects on the left (purple) was distorted by gravity from the intermediate galaxy to produce two x-ray beams and sources (“A” and “B” in a labeled version) detected in the Chandra image, which is represented by the dotted square on the right. X-ray light from the faint object (blue) produces an X-ray source (“C”) that has been amplified by the galaxy to be up to 300 times brighter than it would have been. without the lens. Chandra’s image is shown in the inset.

These two x-ray emitting objects are probably a pair of growing supermassive black holes or a growing supermassive black hole and a jet. Chandra’s previous measurements of pairs or trios of growing supermassive black holes have typically involved objects much closer to Earth, or with much larger separations between objects.

An article describing these results appears in The Journal of Astrophysics. The authors of the study are Dan Schwartz (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian), Cristiana Spignola (INAF) and Anna Barnacka (CfA).

Reference: “Resolving Complex Inner X-Ray Structure of the Gravitationally Lensed AGN MG B2016 + 112” by Daniel Schwartz, Cristiana Spingola and Anna Barnacka, August 11, 2021, The Journal of Astrophysics.
DOI: 10.3847 / 1538-4357 / ac0909

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Chandra X-ray Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory monitors science from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.