Groundbreaking research conducted at Ohio State revealed a method for finding the masses of black holes and provided predictions about the formation of black holes and their host galaxies.

Marianne Vestergaard, a postdoctoral fellow in astronomy, developed a method for determining the masses of black holes in distant quasars. Using the velocity of the gas emitted from the black hole and the distance to that gas, mass estimates were found and then calibrated to local black hole masses given by Dr. Bradley Peterson, an astronomy professor at OSU.

“I provided the masses for 37 objects, but she saw the potential to measure the masses for thousands of objects, using spectral characteristics of other quasars to learn their masses,” Peterson said.

The standard method used to measure mass can only be used for nearby black holes. Using this standard method on more distant luminous objects could take several decades.

With the new method, masses of almost any black hole can be found with one exception: Quasar surveys are not able to detect quasars with lower masses.

“The masses found for black holes in the early universe improve our understanding of how they grow, form, and evolve,” said Patrick Osmer, an astronomy professor and chair of the department.

In addition to her work with the masses of black holes, Vestergaard’s most recent research suggests black holes may form well before their host galaxies.

“The current data indicates that the black holes 12 billion light-years away or more, build up a significant fraction of their mass before the galaxies which host them,” Vestergaard said. “The galaxies are not fully formed at that time, but the black holes are already approximately one billion solar masses, typical of the most massive black holes known.”

Using the mass estimates she found, Vestergaard has compared the black hole masses to the properties of the host galaxy. She found the central black hole masses to be very high and ample evidence that quasar host galaxies are very young due to the rapid formation of stars, a characteristic only seen in young galaxies.

“This is really striking that in such definitely young galaxies their central black hole is already quite massive,” Vestergaard said.

Contributing to a better understanding of the universe and it’s history, Vestergaard hopes to continue her research. This will depend on KRONOS, a satellite proposed by Peterson, which can image material falling onto black holes at a resolution 10,000 times that of the Hubble Space Telescope.

“KRONOS will be useful to get a better calibration,” Vestergaard said. “The current telescopes have exhausted their capabilities.”

Peterson’s proposal was one of 40 submitted to NASA. NASA did not choose the KRONOS for this year, but there will be another competition within a year.