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A new model of quasar mass evolution

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Abstract

Magnetic monopoles have been a trending topic among physicists and astronomers since the 1930s. Researchers have been working hard to find evidence of magnetic monopoles in laboratories. The existence of magnetic monopoles can rationally explain the stability of charges, the quantization of charges, the structure of leptons, the unified composition of leptons and hadrons, and the symmetry of leptons and quarks. The presence of these mysterious particles in the universe could have significant implications for theoretical physics and astrophysics. The Grand Unified Theory has also predicted the existence of magnetic monopoles, which is interestingly implied by some astronomical observations. Noticing that the growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe is an increasingly challenging difficulty faced by astronomers, here we argue that it could be solved with the help of magnetic monopoles. As suggested by Peng et al. in A Monopole Model for Galactic Nuclei. In: Structure and Evolution of Active Galactic Nuclei, vol. 121, p. 663 (1986), quasars containing magnetic monopoles at the center can continuously catalyze the decay of protons to release energy. We examine this model by using quasar data from the Sloan digital sky survey. It is shown that the initial mass distribution of quasars derived from the magnetic monopole model exhibits a Gaussian distribution. At the same time, the initial mass function is also slightly higher than previously expected, which could be verified by future observations.

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Data Availability

The quasar data used in this article is from (Shen et al. 2011).

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Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous referee for useful comments and suggestions. The authors are thankful for beneficial discussions with Professor Yong-Feng Huang. We also thank Nanjing University and Purple Mountain Observatory for valuable support.

Funding

This work was supported by the Regional Collaborative Innovation Project of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (2022E01013), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12173078 and 11773062), and the West Light Foundation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2017-XBQNXZ-A-008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Xinjiang Astronomical observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 150 Science 1-Street, Urumqi, 830011, China

    Zheng Li, Ming Zhang & Xiang Liu

  2. Key Laboratory for Radio Astronomy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2 West Beijing Road, Nanjing, 210008, China

    Zheng Li, Ming Zhang & Xiang Liu

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing, 100049, China

    Zheng Li, Ming Zhang & Xiang Liu

  4. School of Astronomy and Space Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Qiu-He Peng

  5. Key Laboratory of Radio Astrophysics in Xinjiang Province, Urumqi, 830011, China

    Zheng Li, Ming Zhang & Xiang Liu

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  1. Zheng Li
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  2. Ming Zhang
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  4. Xiang Liu
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Zheng Li is the Principal Investigator and the corresponding author. Other authors contributed to the interpretation of the results.

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Correspondence to Zheng Li.

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Li, Z., Zhang, M., Peng, QH. et al. A new model of quasar mass evolution. Astrophys Space Sci 367, 71 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-022-04101-1

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