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Space telescope observations of massive black holes during their formation may be key to understanding the origin of supermassive black holes and high-redshift quasars. To create diagnostics for their detection and confirmation, we study a…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-09-12 Kirk S. S. Barrow , Aycin Aykutalp , John H. Wise

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) with masses of $\sim 10^9 {\rm M_\odot}$ within the first billion year of the universe challenge our conventional understanding of black hole formation and growth. One pathway to these SMBHs proposes that…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-06-11 Matthew T. Scoggins , Zoltán Haiman

We incorporate a model for black hole growth during galaxy mergers into the semi-analytical galaxy formation model based on Lambda-CDM proposed by Baugh et al. (2005). Our black hole model has one free parameter, which we set by matching…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-11 Rowena K. Malbon , C. M. Baugh , C. S. Frenk , C. G. Lacey

Presence of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) with mass $(10^{6}-10^{9}) M_{\odot}$ at $z = 10$ has been recently revealed by James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations. In this study we generate seeds for the above range of SMBHs in…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2026-02-02 Nirmali Das , Sanjeev Kalita , Ankita Kakati

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.…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-10-27 Fabio Pacucci , Andrea Ferrara , Marta Volonteri , Guillaume Dubus

The supermassive black holes (SMBHs) with mass $M_\bullet > 10^9 \, \rm M_\odot$ hosted by high-redshift galaxies have challenged our understanding of black hole formation and growth, as several pathways have emerged attempting to explain…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-11-10 Matthew T. Scoggins , Zoltan Haiman , Fabio Pacucci

In this paper we discuss the evolution of gravitationally unstable pre-galactic discs that result from the collapse of haloes at high redshift $z \approx 10$ or so, which have not yet been enriched by metals. In cases where molecular…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-11 Giuseppe Lodato , Priya Natarajan

Observations of high-redshift quasars indicate that super massive black holes (SMBHs) with masses greater than ${\sim}10^9~M_\odot$ were assembled within the first billion years after the Big Bang. It is unclear how such massive black holes…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-09-26 Eli Visbal , Zoltan Haiman

Motivated by recent observational results that focus on high redshift black holes, we explore the effect of scatter and observational biases on the ability to recover the intrinsic properties of the black hole population at high redshift.…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-28 Marta Volonteri , Daniel P. Stark

The early Universe was composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, with only trace amounts of heavy elements. It was only after the first generation of star formation that the Universe became sufficiently polluted to produce a second…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-01-22 Harley Katz

Massive black holes (MBHs) inhabit galaxy centers, power luminous quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and shape their cosmic environment with the energy they produce. The origins of MBHs remain a mystery and the recent detection by…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-04-18 Marta Volonteri , Melanie Habouzit , Monica Colpi

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,…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-01-13 Andrew D. Santarelli , Claire B. Campbell , Ebraheem Farag , Earl P. Bellinger , Priyamvada Natarajan , Matthew E. Caplan

To explain the observed population of supermassive black holes at z~7, very massive seed black holes or, alternatively, super-Eddington scenarios are needed to reach final masses of the order of 10^9 solar masses. A popular explanation for…

We study the genesis and evolution of super-massive black hole (SMBH) seeds through different formation channels, from PopIII remnants to massive seeds, modeled within the L-Galaxies semi-analytic code. We run the model on the Millennium-II…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-12-06 Daniele Spinoso , Silvia Bonoli , Rosa Valiante , Raffaella Schneider , David Izquierdo-Villalba

We discuss a model for the early assembly of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of galaxies that trace their hierarchical build-up far up in the dark halo `merger tree'. Motivated by the observations of luminous quasars around…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-11 Marta Volonteri , Martin J. Rees

We investigate the formation and growth of massive black hole (BH) seeds in dusty star-forming galaxies, relying and extending the framework proposed by Boco et al. 2020. Specifically, the latter envisages the migration of stellar compact…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2021-10-20 Lumen Boco , Andrea Lapi , Alex Sicilia , Giulia Capurri , Carlo Baccigalupi , Luigi Danese

We assess models for the assembly of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of galaxies that trace their hierarchical build-up far up in the dark halo `merger tree'. We assume that the first `seed' black holes (BHs) formed in…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-07 Marta Volonteri , Francesco Haardt , Piero Madau

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…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-08-06 Zeinab Sherkatghanad , Robert H. Brandenberger

We investigate the coupled formation and evolution of galaxies and their embedded supermassive black holes using state-of-the-art hydrodynamic simulations of cosmological structure formation. For the first time, we self-consistently follow…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 Tiziana Di Matteo , Joerg Colberg , Volker Springel , Lars Hernquist , Debora Sijacki

The formation of the first massive objects in the infant Universe remains impossible to observe directly and yet it sets the stage for the subsequent evolution of galaxies. While some black holes with masses > billion solar masses? have…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-05-28 Ezequiel Treister , Kevin Schawinski , Marta Volonteri , Priyamvada Natarajan , Eric Gawiser