| MadSci Network: Astronomy |
Hello! Well, your statement is not quite accurate: “the relationship between supermassive black holes at the center of their galaxies having a direct correlation to stars at their perimeter, specifically that said stars have a much faster interval(suggesting a "birth relationship") than other "nonconnected" stars in the same galaxy”. What has been observed is that there is a very tight correlation between the mass of the central black hole and the dispersion in the velocity of the stars immediately surrounding it - the more massive the black hole, the more disparate the velocities. These are stars that are within the black hole's "sphere of influence" - where its gravitational force dominates over the gravitational forces from other stars. Outside this sphere, black holes act as any other mass would; this is partly why they are so hard to find. So the supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy couldn’t have any direct effect on the stars at the perimeter of the galaxy, other than the ordinary gravitational force. The source of this correlation is quite mysterious, as are many aspects of galaxy formation. Virtually all galaxies seem to have supermassive black holes in their cores, but we don’t understand why or how they get there. We do know that spiral galaxies tend to be planar (flat), with a common direction of rotation for all stars in the disk; they also have a sprinkling of stars in a halo that is approximately spherical, and which have random orbits. We believe that the halo stars were formed early in the process of galaxy formation, before the original gas cloud had collapsed to a disk; this may be related, either in time or causally, to the formation of the central black hole. However, this correlation between mass and velocity dispersion holds for galaxies of all types, not just spirals. So, what does this have to do with string theory? Probably not much, except insofar as a deeper understanding of string theory may inform our understanding of black holes, which combine the very massive with the very small. There is, however, another (unrelated) theory, called the cosmic string theory. Cosmic strings have nothing to do with subatomic vibrating strings; they are immense “cracks” in the fabric of the universe, defects in its topology where spacetime doesn’t quite fit together right. (They are called “strings” because they are long and stringy). Kinks in these cosmic strings may provide the “seeds” around which galaxies form. If this is the case, the formation of the supermassive black holes could be related. All of this is highly theoretical, though! Here are some references you might want to check out; the first is the Nova series on string theory, “The Elegant Universe”, which is available to watch online in convenient segments. There is also an associated Web page with many links. Then there are several links to information about the mass-velocity dispersion correlation, supermassive black holes, galaxy formation, and cosmic strings. Watch The Elegant Universe (3 hours) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html Supermassive Black Holes and their Host Galaxies http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March02/Ferrarese/Fer4.html#4.1 Theory of Black Holes and Galaxies http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~merritt/theory.htm Supermassive Black Hole Seen Under Construction http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/chandra_merger_020423.html High-Resolution Cosmic String Simulations http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/cs_evol.html Cosmic strings and energy production in quasars http://www.physics.helsinki.fi/~matpitka/quasar.html Origin of Large Scale Structure http://www.u.arizona.edu/~jjoyce/theories.html Large Scale Structure Formation in the Universe http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/natureslaw/unl2203/derrytantiwijaya.doc Galaxy Formation and the Intergalactic Medium Research Group http://galileo.as.utexas.edu/research.html
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