GW 19052 1 Black hole constellation _ Which constellation is the black hole in?

In the universe, black holes are divided into three types: stellar black holes, medium-mass black holes and supermassive black holes.

As the name implies, star-level black holes are formed by the collapse of massive stars, and their mass is between 3- 100 times that of the sun; Supermassive black holes are thought to have formed in the early universe, and their mass is usually 65.438+billion times that of the sun, and may even reach 65.438+billion times that of the sun. In between, there is a medium-mass black hole.

It's true in theory, but it's strange that scientists have never observed medium-mass black holes in the universe before. The distribution of black holes in mass seems to be cut off in the middle, lacking a key link, which has become a big cosmic problem that puzzles scientists.

Until may 20th19,21,the situation changed. At a distance of 7 billion light years from the Earth, human gravitational wave detectors received a very special gravitational wave and named it GW 19052 1. After analyzing this signal, scientists are excited: this is not only the most violent cosmic impact detected by human beings so far, but also the formation of a medium-mass black hole that scientists have been looking for for for a long time.

The research shows that the main features of this collision are two black holes, the mass of which is 65 times and 85 times that of the sun respectively. They collide to form a black hole with a mass 0/42 times that of the sun/kloc-which happens to be the range of a medium-mass black hole. At that time, scientists were very happy to celebrate the discovery of the first medium-mass black hole in history.

However, while everyone was celebrating, someone asked a question: What if it wasn't a black hole?

This is not a question asked out of thin air, there are some reliable basis.

Once the mass of a black hole exceeds 65 times that of the sun, it cannot collapse directly from a massive star. According to the existing black hole model, scientists can infer the mass of the star that formed it from the mass of the black hole. According to 65 times the mass of the sun, the mass of this star will be amazing. This is not to say that it can't exist, but that such a huge constant death will form so-called instability. When a supernova explodes, it won't explode anything, let alone a black hole.

So in this gravitational wave event, a black hole with 85 times the mass of the sun seems a bit weird. Of course, we also have reason to think that this black hole is also formed by the merger of two black holes, but Spanish scientists think there may be another answer here. They believe that there may be a boson star hidden here, which used to exist only in theory.

Boson star

According to different spins, elementary particles can be divided into fermions and bosons. We usually say that photons, gluons that gather quarks, and so-called God particles are all bosons. Protons and neutrons that make up ordinary matter are actually made up of a kind of fermion called quark, that is to say, all celestial bodies we can see can be called "fermi stars".

Scientists believe that there may also be celestial bodies formed by a high concentration of bosons in the universe. This celestial body is somewhat similar to the singularity of a black hole, and it can also have extremely horrible mass, but it does not absorb light, but allows light to pass through like transparency, so it is somewhat similar to a black hole in some respects.

Astrophysicists at the University of Valencia in Spain pointed out: "Our results show that it is really difficult to distinguish the two situations according to the existing data, but the little-known boson star is more likely. This is so exciting. At least up to now, our boson star model is far from perfect, and there are many places to be developed urgently. In this case, if there is a more perfect model, it will provide us with stronger evidence and allow us to examine the previous gravitational wave observations under the assumption of boson star merger. "

In fact, the question of whether a black hole is a boson star has long existed. Needless to say, last September, we wrote about the research on the identity of M87 black hole by Hector olivarez, an astrophysicist from Ladeburg University in the Netherlands and Goethe University in Germany. I can't help it These two celestial bodies are so similar.

For this reason, Juan Calderón Bustillo of the Institute of High Energy Physics in Galicia, Spain, and his team put forward such a question, hoping to seriously consider whether the two protagonists in the GW 19052 1 event are real black holes, so as not to miss the opportunity to discover and study boson stars.

The research team pointed out that their calculation results show that if the gravitational wave event really comes from two boson stars, the mass and distance data of both will change, but there will be no more black holes with a mass of 85 times that of the sun.

Calderon Bastillo said: "First of all, let's put aside the idea of black hole collision and get out of the problem of solving the' impossible black hole'. Second, because the merger of boson stars is relatively less intense, we infer that its distance is much closer than LIGO and Virgo estimated. Another result of this is that the final black hole is also more massive, about 250 times that of the sun, so the fact that we witnessed the birth of a medium-mass black hole is still valid. "

According to their analysis, two boson stars will collide to form a larger boson star. However, this new boson star is very unstable, and its ultimate fate is still to collapse into a black hole.

However, after all, these two celestial bodies have disappeared, and the direct product of the collision, whether it is a boson star or not, has now become a black hole, so it is difficult for scientists to verify whether the team's theory is correct.

Even so, this study is very meaningful, because it provides us with a reference, which scientists can refer to when observing gravitational waves in the future, thus verifying the correctness of this theory.

As a celestial body derived from Einstein's general theory of relativity, black holes have been widely accepted, while boson stars are still at the theoretical level. However, the boson star is not only a celestial body, but even its particles are expected to prove to be the essence of dark matter. Therefore, the search for boson stars is of great significance to scientists.

Maybe when the boson star is discovered, we will solve the mystery of dark matter and look forward to the future gravitational wave astronomy or more advanced technology to discover this legendary celestial body.