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How do supermassive black holes grow? AI finds 7 spacetime-warping 'quasars' that could help solve the mystery
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Astronomers have identified seven new quasar candidates that act as gravitational lenses, using artificial intelligence to sift through data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). These cosmic magnifying glasses could help scientists understand how supermassive black holes grow and evolve. The findings, led by a team at Ohio State University, were published July 22 in The Astrophysical Journal.
Quasars are the intensely bright centers of galaxies powered by actively feeding supermassive black holes. Lead author Everett McArthur, a graduate student at Ohio State, described them as "baby pictures of a supermassive black hole." Studying them is crucial for understanding how black holes evolve into the enormous objects seen across the universe.
However, quasars release so much energy that they outshine their host galaxies, making those galaxies difficult to observe. In rare cases, a quasar's gravity can bend and magnify light from a more distant object, creating a gravitational lens. This offers astronomers a unique opportunity to study both the quasar and the background galaxy simultaneously.
Finding such alignments is exceptionally challenging. The research team began with a catalog of roughly 800,000 quasars identified by DESI. Because few real quasar lenses are known, they trained a machine-learning model on simulated examples before searching the catalog.
The algorithm narrowed the search to about 200 candidates, which researchers then reviewed manually. This process yielded seven new quasar lens candidates, roughly doubling the number of known systems found through similar survey searches. The discoveries highlight the scientific potential hidden within massive datasets that would be nearly impossible to search by hand.
McArthur stressed the importance of exploring how quasars grow into supermassive black holes. These new candidates could provide a powerful tool for investigating how such black holes shaped their host galaxies. The work also demonstrates AI's ability to uncover rare cosmic phenomena in large astronomical archives.
Follow-up observations will be needed to confirm the newly identified lenses and study their properties in detail. If verified, they could offer astronomers a new way to probe black hole evolution while showcasing the value of machine learning in modern sky surveys.
