While a person’s shape can be affected by pancakes,
especially if you eat too many, you may not expect the same to be true on a
cosmic scale. As it turns out, at least for the Circinus spiral galaxy, a
pancake can shape an entire galactic nucleus. Astronomer Lincoln Greenhill
(Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and colleagues have found
direct evidence for a “pancake” of gas and dust at the center of Circinus —
a thin, warped disk surrounding the galaxy’s central, supermassive black
hole.

That disk shapes the galaxy’s nucleus. It shadows different regions from the
“glare” of the black hole, a glare created by the glow of accreting gas. And
when some of this material is blown away from the black hole, as by
radiation, the disk channels it, leaving shadowed regions in relative peace.
This idea stands in contrast to the prevailing wisdom that shadows and
outflows are caused by vast, thick “doughnuts” of dust and gas.

“We caught the Circinus galaxy and its black hole red-handed,” said
Greenhill. “Most astronomers think that the center of an active galaxy has
an outflow directed and channeled by a doughnut-shaped torus of dust and
gas. Our detailed radio images show that the culprit is a warped disk. And
if that’s true for the Circinus galaxy, then the same may be true for other
active galaxies.”

Greenhill and his fellow astronomers identified the disk using the Australia
Telescope Long Baseline Array, which is a network of radio telescopes 600
miles across. Only radio imaging can reveal directly such tiny structures
inside galactic nuclei. The Circinus disk in particular is so deeply buried
in a jumble of stars, gas, and dust that no optical telescope can detect it.
They estimate the disk contains enough mass to form perhaps as many as
400,000 stars like our Sun, were it given a chance.

The Australian array picked up microwave signals from clouds rich in water
vapor within both the warped edge-on disk and the outflow. The locations and
velocities of the clouds provide strong evidence that the disk is channeling
ejected material into two broad cones extending above and below the galactic
plane.

“Water masers have been observed in broad, wide-angle outflows in star
formation regions within our Galaxy, but this is the first time they have
been observed associated with the nuclear region of an active galaxy,” said
Simon Ellingsen (University of Tasmania), a co-author of the study. “These
observations also are the first to show that this wide-angle outflow
originates within about a third of a light-year from the galactic nucleus.”

A black hole is a massive object so compact and with such a powerful
gravitational field that nothing can escape its pull once past the black
hole’s event horizon. However, material can and does escape from regions
near the black hole due to radiation pressure and inefficiencies of the
accretion flow, among other things. The escaping material carries away
angular momentum, allowing the remaining matter to fall into the black hole.
The black hole in Circinus presents a stark contrast to other supermassive
black holes whose outflows are channeled into long, narrow jets of material
that blast out from the galactic nucleus.

“In the center of the Circinus galaxy, we see a black hole that spews out
gas and dust in a broad spray like clouds of vapor from a steam locomotive.
This presents us with a paradox. X-ray radiation from the nucleus of
Circinus — radiation driven by the black hole — is as intense as for black
holes in other active galaxies. In that way, the Circinus black hole appears
to be typical. However, while other black holes drive narrow relativistic
jets of plasma, the Circinus black hole drives a comparatively meek wind –
one that can support the formation of delicate molecules and dust,” said
Greenhill.

Greenhill and his colleagues plan to continue studying the nucleus of the
Circinus galaxy to investigate the mechanism responsible for generating the
outflow.

NOTE TO EDITORS: A high-resolution artwork image is available at:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/pr0317image.html

This research was published in the June 10, 2003 issue of The Astrophysical
Journal.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center
for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA
scientists organized into six research divisions study the origin,
evolution, and ultimate fate of the universe.