近日，荷兰莱顿大学的Martijn S. S. L. Oei及其研究团队取得一项新进展。经过不懈努力，他们宇宙网络规模上的黑洞喷流进行研究。相关研究成果已于2024年9月18日在国际权威学术期刊《自然》上发表。

本文报道了一项观测结果，该观测发现了一处跨度约7百万秒差距（Mpc）的射电结构，大致相当于同时期宇宙空洞半径的66%，显然是由大爆炸后4.4^+0.2 _-0.7至6.3Gyr间的一个黑洞所产生的。该结构包括一个北瓣、一条北喷流、一个核心、一条带有内部热点的南喷流，以及一个带有回流的外部南热点。这一系统表明，即使在宇宙密度比现在高出7到15 ⁺⁶ _-2倍的时期，喷流也能在宇宙学尺度上避免被磁流体动力学不稳定性所破坏。目前尚不清楚喷流如何能保持如此长久的相干性。

据悉，当持续数百万年时，来自超大质量黑洞（SMBH）的高能喷流会成为宇宙中最大的由星系产生的结构。这些高能流通过将电子、原子核和磁场注入星系际介质（IGM），影响着宇宙网中物质和磁场的分布，并且如果它们在早期时代就能延伸得很远，那么它们可能会产生广泛的宇宙学影响。在过去50年里，已知的黑洞喷流对的大小范围上限为4.6–5.0百万秒差距（Mpc），即本地宇宙中宇宙空洞半径的20–30%。由于缺乏对更长喷流的观测，以及理论结果的支持，因此提出了一个大约在5Mpc的增长极限。

附：英文原文

Title: Black hole jets on the scale of the cosmic web

Author: Oei, Martijn S. S. L., Hardcastle, Martin J., Timmerman, Roland, Gast, Aivin R. D. J. G. I. B., Botteon, Andrea, Rodriguez, Antonio C., Stern, Daniel, Calistro Rivera, Gabriela, van Weeren, Reinout J., Rttgering, Huub J. A., Intema, Huib T., de Gasperin, Francesco, Djorgovski, S. G.

Issue&Volume: 2024-09-18

Abstract: When sustained for megayears, high-power jets from supermassive black holes (SMBHs) become the largest galaxy-made structures in the Universe. By pumping electrons, atomic nuclei and magnetic fields into the intergalactic medium (IGM), these energetic flows affect the distribution of matter and magnetism in the cosmic web and could have a sweeping cosmological influence if they reached far at early epochs. For the past 50years, the known size range of black hole jet pairs ended at 4.6–5.0Mpc, or 20–30% of a cosmic void radius in the Local Universe. An observational lack of longer jets, as well as theoretical results, thus suggested a growth limit at about 5Mpc. Here we report observations of a radio structure spanning about 7Mpc, or roughly 66% of a coeval cosmic void radius, apparently generated by a black hole between 4.4^+0.2 _-0.7 and 6.3Gyr after the Big Bang. The structure consists of a northern lobe, a northern jet, a core, a southern jet with an inner hotspot and a southern outer hotspot with a backflow. This system demonstrates that jets can avoid destruction by magnetohydrodynamical instabilities over cosmological distances, even at epochs when the Universe was 7 to 15 ⁺⁶ _-2 times denser than it is today. How jets can retain such long-lived coherence is unknown at present.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07879-y

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07879-y