Unraveling the Growth of Black Holes and Formation of New Stars with Machine Learning

New research led by the University of Bath suggests that galaxy mergers alone are not enough to fuel supermassive black holes, as a reservoir of cold gas at the center of the host galaxy is also needed. Using machine learning, researchers found that mergers are not strongly associated with black-hole growth, and that large amounts of cold gas must be present to allow the black hole to grow. This study challenges previous theoretical models and provides new insights into the relationship between galaxy mergers, supermassive black-hole accretion, and star formation.