Eileen Meyer, UMBC astronomer (IMAGE)
Caption
Eileen Meyer is the lead author on a new surprising study in Nature Astronomy. The paper appears to rule out a leading theory for how black hole jets form x-rays. Black hole jets are known to emit x-rays, but how they accelerate particles to this high-energy state is still a mystery. One model of how jets generate x-rays expects the jets’ x-ray emissions to remain stable over long time scales. However, the new paper found that the x-ray emissions of a statistically significant number of jets varied over just a few years. The findings open the door to reimagining how particle acceleration works. “Hopefully this will be a real call to the theorists,” Meyer says, “to basically take a look at this result and come up with jet models that are consistent with what we’re finding.”
Credit
Marlayna Demond/UMBC
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