Related papers: Identifying Direct Collapse Black Hole Seeds throu…
We track the growth and evolution of high redshift seed black holes over cosmic time. This population of massive, initial black hole seeds form at these early epochs from the direct collapse of pre-galactic gas discs. Populating dark matter…
Direct collapse black holes (DCBHs) are excellent candidates as seeds of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) observed at $z \gsim 6$. The formation of a DCBH requires a strong external radiation field to suppress $\rm H_2$ formation and…
Many black hole (BH) candidates exist, ranging from supermassive ($\sim10^{6}$--$10^{10}$ M$_{\odot}$) to stellar masses ($\sim 1$--$100$ M$_{\odot}$), all of them identified by indirect processes. Although there are no known candidate BHs…
Observing the light emitted by the first accreting black holes (BHs) would dramatically improve our understanding of the formation of quasars at z > 6, possibly unveiling the nature of their supermassive black hole (SMBH) seeds. In previous…
I review the current understanding of some key properties of the earliest growing supermassive black holes (SMBHs), as determined from the most up-to-date observations of z>=5 quasars. This includes their accretion rates and growth history,…
Black holes of a billion solar masses are observed in the infant universe a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. The direct collapse of protogalactic gas clouds in primordial halos with $\rm T_{vir} \geq 10^{4} K$ provides the most…
In this white paper we explore the capabilities required to identify and study supermassive black holes formed from heavy seeds ($\mathrm{M_{\bullet}} \sim 10^4 - 10^6 \, \mathrm{M_{\odot}}$) in the early Universe. To obtain an unequivocal…
More than 300 supermassive black holes have been detected at redshifts larger than 6, and they are abundant in the centers of local galaxies. Their formation mechanisms, however, are still rather unconstrained. A possible origin of these…
The astrophysical processes that led to the formation of the first seed black holes and to their growth into the supermassive variety that powers bright quasars at redshift 6 are poorly understood. In standard LCDM hierarchical cosmologies,…
We estimate the fraction of halos that host supermassive black holes (SMBHs) forming through the direct collapse (DC) scenario by using cosmological N -body simulations combined with a semi-analytic model for galaxy evolution. While in most…
The direct collapse model for the formation of massive seed black holes in the early Universe attempts to explain the observed number density of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at $z \sim 6$ by assuming that they grow from seeds with…
I review scenarios for the assembly of supermassive black holes (MBHs) at the center of galaxies that trace their hierarchical build-up far up in the dark matter halo "merger tree". Monte Carlo realizations of the merger hierarchy in a LCDM…
We use cosmological adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) code Enzo zoom-in simulations to study the long term evolution of the collapsing gas within dark matter (DM) halos at high redshifts. This direct collapse process is a leading candidate for…
With detections of quasars powered by increasingly massive black holes (BHs) at increasingly early times in cosmic history over the past decade, there has been correspondingly rapid progress made on the theory of early BH formation and…
Most galaxies, including the Milky Way, host a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center. These SMBHs can be observed out to high redshifts (z>=6) if the accretion rate is sufficiently large. However, we do not fully understand the…
Massive 10^6-10^10 Msun black holes (BHs) are ubiquitous in local galactic nuclei. They were common by the time the Universe is several Gyr old, and many of them were in place within the first 1~Gyr after the Big Bang. Their quick assembly…
It has long been suggested that a fraction of the dark matter in the Universe could exist in the form of primordial black holes (PBHs) that have existed since the radiation dominated era. Recent studies have suggested that these PBHs may be…
We analyze the early growth stage of direct-collapse black holes (DCBHs) with $\sim 10^{5} \ \rm M_\odot$, which are formed by collapse of supermassive stars in atomic-cooling halos at $z \gtrsim 10$. A nuclear accretion disk around a…
The origin of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that inhabit the centers of massive galaxies is largely unconstrained. Remnants from supermassive stars (SMSs) with masses around 10,000 solar masses provide the ideal seed candidates, known as…
In the last decade, the growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) has been intricately linked to galaxy formation and evolution and is a key ingredient in the assembly of galaxies. To investigate the origin of SMBHs, we perform…