One of the more fascinating astrophysical discoveries in recent years is that almost all galaxies hide supermassive black holes at their cores. Indeed, astronomers believe that galaxies and black holes have a kind of symbiotic relationship so that one cannot form or grow without the other.
The evidence comes from observations of galaxies both near and far—almost all contain huge black holes.
But that raises an interesting question. We see the most distant galaxies as they were soon after the universe began. Some of these contain black holes that are a billion times more massive than the Sun but are themselves only a billion years old. The problem for astrophysicists is how these black holes could have grown so massive in such a short space of time.
Today, we get an answer from Marco Spaans at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He says that black holes can grow by feeding on the quantum black holes that leap in and out of existence at the smallest scale. These quantum black holes are part of the so-called quantum foam that physicists believe makes up the fabric of the Universe.
If Spaans is right, black holes grow by feeding on spacetime itself and their quantum feeding habits effectively solve the problem of how the biggest black holes become so massive, so quickly. “Supermassive black holes can acquire a lot of their mass through these quantum contributions over the life time of the universe,” he says.
link.
Three thoughts.
If this is true, it has some wildly weird implications about matter and the universe.
It also means you can do funny things with the quantum foam. Possibly technologically. Almost bet that's the next big thing for physics circa 2050.
Black hole evaporations are going to be weirder still: all the other half of the virtual particle pairs are coming back.
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