THE SUDDEN DEATH OF THE NEAREST QUASAR

Journal Article · Sat Nov 20 00:00:00 EST 2010 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/724/1/L30· OSTI ID:21452673

Schawinski, Kevin; Virani, Shanil; Megan Urry, C; Natarajan, Priyamvada; Coppi, Paolo ^[1]; Evans, Daniel A ^[2]; Keel, William C; Manning, Anna ^[3]; Lintott, Chris J; Kaviraj, Sugata ^[4]; Bamford, Steven P ^[5]; Jozsa, Gyula I. G.; Garrett, Michael; Van Arkel, Hanny ^[6]; Gay, Pamela ^[7]; Fortson, Lucy ^[8]

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1. Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511 (United States)
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139 (United States)
3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, P.O. Box 870324, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 (United States)
4. Astrophysics Department, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RH (United Kingdom)
5. Centre for Astronomy and Particle Theory, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD (United Kingdom)
6. Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Postbus 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo (Netherlands)
7. Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL 62026 (United States)
8. School of Physics and Astronomy, 116 Church Street S. E., University of Minnesota/Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN 55455 (United States)

Galaxy formation is significantly modulated by energy output from supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies which grow in highly efficient luminous quasar phases. The timescale on which black holes transition into and out of such phases is, however, unknown. We present the first measurement of the shutdown timescale for an individual quasar using X-ray observations of the nearby galaxy IC 2497, which hosted a luminous quasar no more than 70,000 years ago that is still seen as a light echo in 'Hanny's Voorwerp', but whose present-day radiative output is lower by at least two, and more likely by over four, orders of magnitude. This extremely rapid shutdown provides new insight into the physics of accretion in supermassive black holes and may signal a transition of the accretion disk to a radiatively inefficient state.

• OSTI ID: 21452673
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 724, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/724/1/L30; ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ACCRETION DISKS
BLACK HOLES
GALAXIES
QUASARS
X RADIATION
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
IONIZING RADIATIONS
RADIATIONS