Recently, Dr. Cui Yuzhu from the Institute of Astrophysics, School of Physical Science and Technology of our university, and Dr. Lin Weikang from the Southwest Institute for Astronomy Research of Yunnan University have made a breakthrough in the research on the black hole-accretion disk-jet precession system. The relevant research results were published in the journal Nature Astronomy on June 20th, with the two serving as co-first authors and corresponding authors.
This study builds on the 2023 discovery by the international collaboration led by Dr. Cui Yuzhu, which first identified the periodic oscillation of the jet from the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy. Through further detailed analysis of long-term, high-precision observations of the jet's root, the two researchers have, for the first time, concluded that the structure of the M87 accretion disk is compact and discovered a curved structure near the black hole in the jet that is dynamically linked to the black hole's spin. This marks a new phase in black hole precession system research, moving from "phenomenological observation" to "detailed physical structure analysis."
This work may reveal a hidden cosmic law: the jet-accretion disk coordinated precession mechanism observed in M87 may be prevalent in other active galactic nuclei (AGNs). It lays the foundation for constructing a theory on the dynamic correlation between black holes, accretion disks, and jets. The long-term monitoring project of the East Asian Very Long Baseline Interferometry Array, led by Dr. Cui Yuzhu and involving China, Japan, and South Korea, is continuing to observe M87. In the future, combining data from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) array, the next-generation EHT, and other higher-precision, long-term observations, further research on accretion disk-jet interactions and their physical mechanisms can be conducted.
With continuous breakthroughs in observation technology and the increasing sophistication of numerical simulations, it is expected that the ultimate mysteries of matter and energy in extreme gravitational environments will be unraveled at a more refined scale.
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