Unique chemical composition surrounding supermassive black hole
An international research team led by Takuma Izumi, a second-year master's student of science at the University of Tokyo, and Kotaro Kohno, a professor at the University of Tokyo, successfully captured a detailed image of high-density molecular gas around an active supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy called NGC 1097 at the highest sensitivity ever achieved. The observation result shows that there is a unique chemical composition characterized by enhancement of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) around the black hole, which would be caused by high temperature heating of the environment surrounding the black hole. It is expected that this new method focusing on the difference of emission frequencies from molecules uniquely found around black holes may open the way for "the search for a hidden black hole" which is overcast with dust particles and optically invisible.