Related papers: The evolution of massive black hole seeds
Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have uncovered supermassive black holes (SMBHs) with masses exceeding $10^6 \mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ at redshifts $z > 8$, posing significant challenges to existing models of early black…
The existence of supermassive black holes at high redshifts ($z\sim7$) is difficult to accommodate in standard astrophysical scenarios. It has been shown that dark matter models with a subdominant self-interacting component are able to…
The origins and mergers of supermassive black holes (BHs) remain a mystery. We describe a scenario from a novel multi-physics simulation featuring rapid ($\lesssim 1\,$Myr) hyper-Eddington gas capture by a $\sim 1000\,{\rm M}_{\odot}$…
High-redshift luminous quasars powered by accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs) with mass $\gtrsim 10^9 M_\odot$ constrain their formation pathways. We investigate the formation of heavy seeds of SMBHs through gas collapse in the…
The origin of the first supermassive black holes (SMBHs) observed at redshifts $z\geq 9$ remains one of the most challenging open questions in astrophysics. Their rapid emergence suggests that massive ``heavy seeds'' must have formed early,…
A group of massive galaxies at redshifts of $z\gtrsim 7$ have been recently detected by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which were unexpected to form so early within the framework of standard Big Bang cosmology. In this work, we…
Extremely massive black holes, with masses $M_{\rm BH} > 10^9 M_\odot$, have been observed at ever higher redshifts. These results create ever tighter constraints on the formation and growth mechanisms of early black holes. Here we show…
Massive Black Hole (MBH) seeds at redshift $z \gtrsim 10$ are now thought to be key ingredients to explain the presence of the super-massive ($10^{9-10} \, \mathrm{M_{\odot}}$) black holes in place $ < 1 \, \mathrm{Gyr}$ after the Big Bang.…
We present the mass function of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) over the redshift range z=0-2, using the latest deep luminosity and mass functions of field galaxies to constrain the masses of their spheroids, which we relate to SMBH mass…
Most cosmological simulations of galaxy evolution include active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback, typically seeding black holes with masses of $\geq 10^5\, h^{-1}\, \rm{M}_{\odot}$ when the dark matter halo exceeds a given threshold mass.…
Deciphering the formation of supermassive black holes~(SMBHs) is a key science goal for upcoming observational facilities. In most theoretical channels proposed so far, the seed formation depends crucially on local gas conditions. We…
Halos with masses in excess of the atomic limit are believed to be ideal environments in which to form heavy black hole seeds with masses above 10^3 Msun. In cases where the H_2 fraction is suppressed this is expected to lead to reduced…
The properties of the first generation of black-hole seeds trace and distinguish different models of formation of cosmic structure in the high-redshift universe. The observational challenge lies in identifying black holes in the mass range…
The presence of massive black holes (BHs) with masses of order $10^9\rm\, M_\odot$, powering bright quasars when the Universe was less than 1 Gyr old, poses strong constraints on their formation mechanism. Several scenarios have been…
Supermassive black holes are nowadays believed to reside in most local galaxies. Accretion of gas and black hole mergers play a fundamental role in determining the two parameters defining a black hole: mass and spin. I briefly review here…
In this paper, we compare the observationally derived black hole mass function (BHMF) of luminous broad-line quasars (BLQSOs) at 1<z<4.5 drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) presented in Kelly et al. (2010), with models of merger…
The existence of black holes in the intermediate mass interval between one hundred and ten thousand solar masses, filling the gap between the stellar and the supermassive black holes is a key prediction to explain the origin of luminous…
The origin of the seeds which develop into the observed super-massive black holes at high redshifts may be hard to interpret in the context of the standard $\Lambda CDM$ of early universe cosmology based on Gaussian primordial…
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are nowadays believed to reside in most local galaxies, and the available data show an empirical correlation between bulge luminosity - or stellar velocity dispersion - and black hole mass, suggesting a…
The growth of the first super massive black holes (SMBHs) at z > 6 is still a major challenge for theoretical models. If it starts from black hole (BH) remnants of Population III stars (light seeds with mass ~ 100 Msun) it requires…