Journal article
Nature Astronomy, 2026
APA
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Audard, M., Awaki, H., Ballhausen, R., Bamba, A., Behar, E., Boissay-Malaquin, R., … Meulen, B. V. (2026). Accurate determination of chemical abundances near a supermassive black hole. Nature Astronomy.
Chicago/Turabian
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Audard, M., H. Awaki, R. Ballhausen, A. Bamba, E. Behar, R. Boissay-Malaquin, L. Brenneman, et al. “Accurate Determination of Chemical Abundances near a Supermassive Black Hole.” Nature Astronomy (2026).
MLA
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Audard, M., et al. “Accurate Determination of Chemical Abundances near a Supermassive Black Hole.” Nature Astronomy, 2026.
BibTeX Click to copy
@article{m2026a,
title = {Accurate determination of chemical abundances near a supermassive black hole},
year = {2026},
journal = {Nature Astronomy},
author = {Audard, M. and Awaki, H. and Ballhausen, R. and Bamba, A. and Behar, E. and Boissay-Malaquin, R. and Brenneman, L. and Brown, Gregory V. and Corrales, Lia and Costantini, E. and Cumbee, R. and Trigo, M. Díaz and Done, C. and Dotani, T. and Ebisawa, K. and Eckart, M. and Eckert, D. and Enoto, T. and Eguchi, Satoshi and Ezoe, Y. and Foster, A. and Fujimoto, R. and Fujita, Yutaka and Fukazawa, Yasushi and Fukushima, Kotaro and Furuzawa, A. and Gallo, L. and García, Javier A. and Gu, Liyi and Guainazzi, M. and Hagino, Kouichi and Hamaguchi, Kenji and Hatsukade, I. and Hayashi, K. and Hayashi, T. and Hell, N. and Hodges-Kluck, E. and Hornschemeier, A. and Ichinohe, Y. and Ishi, D. and Ishida, Manabu and Ishikawa, K. and Ishisaki, Y. and Kaastra, J. and Kallman, T. and Kara, Erin and Katsuda, S. and Kanemaru, Y. and Kelley, Rich and Kilbourne, C. and Kitamoto, S. and Kobayashi, S. and Kohmura, T. and Kubota, A. and Leutenegger, M. and Loewenstein, Michael and Maeda, Yoshitomo and Markevitch, M. and Matsumoto, Hironori and Matsushita, K. and McCammon, D. and McNamara, Brian and Mernier, F. and Miller, Eric D. and Miller, Jon M. and Mitsuishi, I. and Mizumoto, M. and Mizuno, T. and Mori, K. and Mukai, K. and Murakami, Hiroshi and Mushotzky, R. and Nakajima, H. and Nakazawa, K. and Ness, J. and Nobukawa, K. and Nobukawa, M. and Noda, H. and Odaka, H. and Ogawa, S. and Ogorzałek, A. and Okajima, T. and Ota, Naomi and Paltani, S. and Petre, R. and Plucinsky, P. and Porter, F. and Pottschmidt, K. and Sato, Kosuke and Sato, Toshiki and Sawada, Makoto and Seta, H. and Shidatsu, M. and Simionescu, A. and Smith, Randall and Suzuki, Hiromasa and Szymkowiak, A. and Takahashi, H. and Takeo, M. and Tamagawa, T. and Tamura, Keisuke and Tanaka, Takaaki and Tanimoto, A. and Tashiro, M. and Terada, Y. and Terashima, Y. and Tsuboi, Y. and Tsujimoto, M. and Tsunemi, H. and Tsuru, T. and Tümer, Ayşegül and Uchida, Hiroyuki and Uchida, N. and Uchida, Y. and Uchiyama, H. and Ueda, Y. and Uno, S. and Vink, J. and Watanabe, S. and Williams, Brian J. and Yamada, Satoshi and Yamada, S. and Yamaguchi, Hiroya and Yamaoka, K. and Yamasaki, N. and Yamauchi, M. and Yamauchi, S. and Yaqoob, T. and Yoneyama, T. and Yoshida, Tessei and Yukita, M. and Zhuravleva, I. and Fujiwara, Kanta and Izumi, T. and Kawamuro, T. and Maeda, K. and Nakatani, Yuya and Paerels, F. and Uematsu, R. and Meulen, Bert Vander}
}
The metal abundances in galactic nuclei carry key information on the history of star formation and mass transfer in central regions of galaxies. X-ray fluorescence analysis is a unique tool to reliably measure the abundances of various elements via simple physics. Here we present a new observation of the active nucleus in the Circinus Galaxy with the XRISM satellite at unprecedented X-ray energy resolution. The fluorescent iron-K$\alpha$ line profile modified by Compton scattering indicates that the material responsible for its emission is cold, metal-rich, and is located $\gtrsim$0.024 parsecs (pc) from the supermassive black hole, consistent with the dusty torus region. The abundance pattern derived from comparing fluorescent line intensities of different metals shows sub-solar ratios of argon- and calcium-to-iron, and a super-solar ratio of nickel-to-iron. This abundance pattern is best produced by a combination in number fraction of $92^{+2}{-4}$\% core-collapse supernovae from progenitor stars less massive than $20^{+3}{-2} M_\odot$ and $8^{+4}{-2}$\% type-Ia SNe. This suggests that gas feeding the super-massive black hole was enriched by recent core-collapse supernovae. Our findings imply that in metal-rich environments stars more massive than about 20 $M\odot$ directly collapse into black holes or make faint SNe without ejecting heavy metals into the space.