An article published in the journal “Nature Physics” describes the study conducted on the supermassive black hole known as PKS 1830-211 using observations made with ESA’s Integral and NASA’s Fermi and Swift space telescopes. The peculiarity is that these observations used a gravitational lensing effect created by a galaxy to explore the inner regions of the area around the black hole and the gamma rays that come from it.

The supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies are difficult to study because of their huge distances but in cases like that of PKS 1830-211 a galaxy between it and the Earth can be of help. The force of gravity of a galaxy bends the light that passes in its vicinity and in this way can create a magnifying glass effect for this reason called gravitational lensing.

Dr. Andrii Neronov of the University of Geneva, Switzerland, is the principal author of the research on the supermassive black hole called PKS 1830-211. In this case, the observations were focused on a relatively small area, therefore we speak of gravitational microlensing. We’re talking about astronomical distances so small means a radius of about 15 billion kilometers (about 9.3 billion miles), about one hundred times the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

From Earth, a direct observation of an area of ​​that size in a galaxy billions of light years away is impossible. Dr. Neronov compared it to trying to observe an ant on the Moon. It’s for this reason that the effect of gravitational microlensing was crucial in this search. It’s a technique already exploited in the past for various electromagnetic wavelengths, even with PKS 1830-211, but it’s the first time it’s used to detect gamma rays.

Jets of gamma rays are emitted from materials that reach very high temperatures when they get close to a supermassive black hole, which eventually swallows them. Observations of PKS 1830-211 revealsed that the more energetic gamma rays, detected by Fermi, come from the base of the jet that has a limited size. The lower-energy gamma rays, detected by Integral, were emitted by a much wider surrounding region.

The team also studied the X-ray emissions using Integral and Swift to get a more complete picture of this supermassive black hole’s activity. The result is that they are emitted from a region that extends around PKS 1830-211 for 400 billion kilometers (almost 250 billion miles) or even more.

These observations provide unique information on high-energy processes that take place around supermassive black holes. They will allow us to better understand how gamma-ray jets are formed and therefore how these extreme objects work and have a significant influence on the evolution of the galaxies that host them.

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