SuperWASP: Black Hole Hunters team invites the public to be a part of the world's largest and most popular platform, Zooniverse, to assist professionals in finding non-feeding black holes through self-lensing. The team is looking for starlight variations that might indicate the presence of these black holes.
Andromeda Galaxy
Self-Lensing Helps Detect Non-feeding Black Holes
The team looks for a non-feeding black hole, which is hard to find unless someone could detect it using self-lensing. Those black holes that have been identified are feeding, a process allowing X-rays to be emitted.
According to NASA, the matter heats up to a million-degree as it pulls toward the black hole. It is the reason why it glows in X-rays.
But not all black holes feed. So, there are no X-rays to use as a reference in detecting this type. Another way the team considers is using gravity as its reference through self-lensing.
To understand self-lensing, Zooniverse explains it by defining microlensing. Microlensing is observed when a foreground object, like a black hole or neutron star, passes in front of a much more distant, regular background star. It frequently happens because of the curvature of space-time. The curvature is caused by the mass of the compact object or lens bending the paths of photons from the source, which makes the source look brighter and larger.
On the other hand, self-lensing works in a binary system, including a compact object and a normal star close to edge-on. As the compact object transits in front of its binary companion on an orbital period, the light from the normal star will be lensed. The light would show a characteristic periodic increase. Knowing the period and magnification allows the scientists to directly estimate the mass of the compact object. However, it is important to note that it is necessary to know the mass and radius of the normal star.
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Black Hole Project Team Encourages the Public to Join
The team encourages the public to join the Black Hole Hunters group. Those who are interested in joining can visit the website. Participants would only need to look at the graphs available showing the changes in the brightness of the stars. If anyone saw the changes the team is looking for, they could report them immediately.
While the participants work on this project, a mixture of real and simulated subjects is available. The simulated subjects were included to give examples of what shapes to look for in the SuperWASP data and the team could work out the lowest lensing magnification that should be detectable by Zooniverse volunteers.
"I can't wait to see what we find with the Black Hole Hunters project. The black holes we're looking for should definitely exist, but none have been found yet. Our search should give us the first hints about how many black holes are quietly orbiting stars, eventually helping us to understand the way such systems form," said Adam McMaster, one of the co-leads of the project, as posted in The Royal Astronomical Society.
McMaster added that finding the black holes is a huge task. It was not something that they could do alone. For him, it was a great idea that anyone with access to the Internet would be able to get involved even though they did not have enough knowledge about astronomy.
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