https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04215-6 Skip to main content Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. Advertisement Advertisement Nature * View all journals * Search * My Account Login * Explore content * About the journal * Publish with us Subscribe * Sign up for alerts * RSS feed 1. nature 2. articles 3. article * Article * Published: 19 January 2022 Black-hole-triggered star formation in the dwarf galaxy Henize 2-10 * Zachary Schutte ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7412-8988^1 & * Amy E. Reines ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7158-614X^1 Nature volume 601, pages 329-333 (2022)Cite this article * 2867 Accesses * 1 Citations * 655 Altmetric * Metrics details Subjects * Astronomy and astrophysics * Galaxies and clusters Abstract Black-hole-driven outflows have been observed in some dwarf galaxies with active galactic nuclei^1, and probably play a role in heating and expelling gas (thereby suppressing star formation), as they do in larger galaxies^2. The extent to which black-hole outflows can trigger star formation in dwarf galaxies is unclear, because work in this area has previously focused on massive galaxies and the observational evidence is scarce^3,4,5. Henize 2-10 is a dwarf starburst galaxy previously reported to have a central massive black hole^6,7,8,9, although that interpretation has been disputed because some aspects of the observational evidence are also consistent with a supernova remnant^10,11. At a distance of approximately 9 Mpc, it presents an opportunity to resolve the central region and to determine if there is evidence for a black-hole outflow influencing star formation. Here we report optical observations of Henize 2-10 with a linear resolution of a few parsecs. We find an approximately 150-pc-long ionized filament connecting the region of the black hole with a site of recent star formation. Spectroscopy reveals a sinusoid-like position-velocity structure that is well described by a simple precessing bipolar outflow. We conclude that this black-hole outflow triggered the star formation. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a preview of subscription content Access options Access through your institution Access through your institution Change institution Buy or subscribe Subscribe to nature+ Get immediate online access to the entire Nature family of 50+ journals $29.99 monthly Subscribe Subscribe to Journal Get full journal access for 1 year $199.00 only $3.90 per issue Subscribe All prices are NET prices. VAT will be added later in the checkout. Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout. Buy article Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube. $32.00 Buy All prices are NET prices. Additional access options: * Log in * Learn about institutional subscriptions Fig. 1: HST optical image of the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10. [41586_2021_4215_Fig1_HTML] Fig. 2: Optical spectra and ionized gas kinematics for the central region of Henize 2-10. [41586_2021_4215_Fig2_HTML] Fig. 3: Visualization of the bipolar outflow model and star-forming regions. [41586_2021_4215_Fig3_HTML] Data availability The spectroscopic data analysed in this study are available from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) at https:// archive.stsci.edu/. References 1. Manzano-King, C. M., Canalizo, G. & Sales, L. V. AGN-driven outflows in dwarf galaxies. Astrophys. J. 884, 54 (2019). ADS CAS Google Scholar 2. Fabian, A. C. Observational evidence of active galactic nuclei feedback. Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 50, 455-489 (2012). ADS CAS Google Scholar 3. Gaibler, V. et al. Jet-induced star formation in gas-rich galaxies. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 425, 438-449 (2012). ADS Google Scholar 4. Maiolino, R. et al. Star formation inside a galactic outflow. Nature 544, 202-206 (2017). ADS CAS PubMed Google Scholar 5. Gallagher, R. et al. Widespread star formation inside galactic outflows. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 485, 3409-3429 (2019). 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Johnson for their assistance with the HST/STIS proposal while A.E.R. was a graduate student at the University of Virginia, and for subsequent discussions. Support for Program number HST-GO-12584.006-A was provided by NASA through a grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated, under NASA contract NAS5-26555. A.E.R. also acknowledges support for this work provided by NASA through EPSCoR grant number 80NSSC20M0231. Z.S. acknowledges support for this project from the Montana Space Grant Consortium. Author information Affiliations 1. eXtreme Gravity Institute, Department of Physics, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA Zachary Schutte & Amy E. Reines Authors 1. Zachary Schutte View author publications You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar 2. Amy E. Reines View author publications You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar Contributions Z.S. reduced and analysed the STIS data and compared the results with models. A.E.R. led the HST/STIS proposal and helped with the data reduction. Both authors worked on the interpretation of the results and the writing of the paper. Corresponding author Correspondence to Zachary Schutte. Ethics declarations Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Additional information Publisher's note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Extended data figures and tables Extended Data Fig. 1 Raw 2D spectra showing the [OI]6300 emission line at the location of the nucleus in the EW slit orientation. The location of the nucleus is indicated by white circles and the two images correspond to the two dithered sub-exposures. Extended Data Fig. 2 Combined 2D spectra showing the [OI]6300 emission line at the location of the nucleus in the EW slit orientation. Same as Extended Data Fig. 1 but showing the reduced 2D image with the dithered sub-exposures combined. Extended Data Fig. 3 The electron density, n[e], along the EW slit orientation. We measure the electron density along the EW slit from the ratio of [SII]6716/[SII]6731 and find the electron density ranges from \(\sim {10}^{2.5}-{10}^{4}\) cm^-3, which is within the range the [SII] ratio is sensitive to density. The high densities are consistent with those predicted by optical emission line diagnostics derived from the Allen et al.^25 shock models. Extended Data Fig. 4 The spatial extraction regions taken along the EW slit orientation. We place these regions on optical emission line diagnostic diagrams (Extended Data Figs. 5-7). Top panel: the extraction regions are shown on the narrow band H\(\alpha \) + continuum image from HST to highlight the ionized gas features that several of the spatial extractions probe. Bottom panel: the extraction regions are shown on the archival 0.8 micron HST image, showing young star clusters that the EW slit orientation passes through. Extended Data Fig. 5 Narrow emission line diagnostic diagrams showing various extraction regions along the EW slit orientation (see Extended Data Fig. 4). The nucleus (yellow point) falls in the Seyfert region of the [OI]/H\ (\alpha \) diagram. The young star-forming region ~70 pc to the east of the low-luminosity AGN is depicted with a blue triangle and star for the primary emission line component and the blue-shifted secondary component, respectively. [OI] is not detected in all of the regions. Extended Data Fig. 6 Optical emission line diagnostics from the shock and shock+precursor models with varying gas density. We place the spatial extractions from the EW slit orientation shown in Extended Data Fig. 4 on a grid of shock excitation models (presented in Allen et al.^25 with varying gas density (n = 0.01-1000 \({\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}\)) and shock velocity (v = 100-600 km/s). We fix the transverse magnetic field to be b = \(1{\rm{\mu }}\)G and the assume solar metallicity. Extended Data Fig. 7 Optical emission line diagnostics from the shock and shock+precursor models with varying magnetic field. The models (presented in Allen et al.^25) are shown as a grid with dashed blue lines indicating constant shock velocity and dashed black lines indicating constant transverse magnetic field. For these models, the density is fixed to n = 1000 \({\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}\) and the transverse magnetic field parameter is allowed to vary from b = 0.01-32 \({\rm{\mu }}\)G. Extended Data Fig. 8 A diagram of the toy model of the bipolar outflow generated by the low-luminosity AGN in Henize 2-10. Our simple model depends on the outflow velocity of the ionized gas ( \({v}_{{outflow}}\)), the angle the outflow makes with its precession axis (\(\theta \)) and the angular frequency with which the outflow precesses (\(\omega \)). Similar models have been used to describe the bending seen in large radio jets^15,16. Extended Data Table 1 Summary of observational results regarding the nature of the nucleus in Henize 2-10 Full size table Supplementary information Peer Review File Rights and permissions Reprints and Permissions About this article Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark Cite this article Schutte, Z., Reines, A.E. Black-hole-triggered star formation in the dwarf galaxy Henize 2-10. Nature 601, 329-333 (2022). https://doi.org /10.1038/s41586-021-04215-6 Download citation * Received: 29 June 2021 * Accepted: 08 November 2021 * Published: 19 January 2022 * Issue Date: 20 January 2022 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04215-6 Share this article Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Get shareable link Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Copy to clipboard Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative Further reading * Hunting for massive black holes in dwarf galaxies + Amy E. Reines Nature Astronomy (2022) Comments By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate. 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