Black Hole 'Burps' May Help Determine Their Size

According to a new study published in the journal Science, feeding supermassive black holes emit a noticeable flickering light that is directly related to their mass. "The researchers describe the flickering as the black hole equivalent of a burp," reports CNET. "It's the 'burps' that could help us come to terms with the relative sizes of not only supermassive black holes but also accreting white dwarfs and -- hopefully -- intermediate-mass black holes, or IMBHs, which are thought to have formed throughout the history of the universe but are rare and hard to find." From the report: When dormant, supermassive black holes are typically quite dull and don't emit much light. When active and feeding, however, they produce a pattern of flickering light we can detect from across the universe, ranging from hours to decades. "There have been many studies that explored possible relations of the observed flickering and the mass of the SMBH, but the results have been inconclusive and sometimes controversial," said Colin Burke, an astronomy graduate student and lead author of the study.

The team, led by Burke, analyzed the variability patterns to identify a characteristic timescale, allowing them to equate the flickering patterns with the mass of a supermassive black hole. When it comes to these active, feeding supermassive black holes, shorter timescales of flickering indicate a smaller black hole, while longer timescales indicate more massive black holes. [...] "Now that there is a correlation between the flickering pattern and the mass of the central accreting object, we can use it to predict what the flickering signal from an IMBH might look like," Burke said.

Is it necessary though?

[sg_oneill]

I'd have thought it would be easy to work out from the orbits of its captives.

Ie, use the orbits to work out the gravitational pull -> determine the mass required to generate that pull at that distance -> follow swartzchild's radius calculation to get size.

Has anyone got a like to an open pub site for this? scihubs bombing out on me again.

Re:Is it necessary though?

[spaceman375]

It took us many years to get enough data to model the orbits of the stars around sag a*, our own central galactic black hole. We just don't have the orbital data your speculation relies on. Nothing wrong with the theory, but our tech isn't up to it yet.

Re:

[Ungrounded Lightning]

You also need to correct for time dilation: When the spiraling-in clump of matter gets deep enough that the tideal tearing is making it light up, it's also deep enough that the gravitational time distortion is getting extreme.

So it's good to look at real data. Might be some effect that wasn't calculated correctly, and "Hey Presto!" new science.

Re:

[gosso920]

In space, no one can hear you belch.

Re:

[Joce640k]

You need to google "loudest burp".

There's people out there who could burp in the middle of a rock concert and everybody around them would be saying "Ow, my ears!"

It's only a secondary information source

[BAReFO0t]

You still need to calibrate it against something else.
Or else you'll end up with one of those infamous circular reasoning indicators that are based on things that are indirectly based on themselves, leading to an epidemic of invalid assumptions in all of science.

And you need to trust that it is as linear or exponential as you think it is.

Re:

[Mattcelt]

Enquiring minds want to know.

You're not fooling anyone.

Everyone knows trolls have excrement where their minds should be.