Related papers: Induced metal-free star formation around a massive…
We investigate the formation of the first massive black holes in high redshift galaxies, with the goal of providing insights to which galaxies do or do not host massive black holes. We adopt a novel approach to forming seed black holes in…
Direct collapse of pristine gas in early galaxies is a promissing pathway for forming supermassive black holes (BHs) powering active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at the epoch of reionization (EoR). This seeding mechanism requires suppression of…
Supermassive black holes with billion solar masses are in place already within the first Gyr, however, their origin and growth in such a short lapse of time is extremely challenging to understand. Here, we discuss the formation paths of…
We investigate the ab-initio formation of super-massive stars in a pristine atomic cooling halo. The halo is extracted from a larger self-consistent parent simulation. The halo remains metal-free and star formation is suppressed due to a…
We study the birth of supermassive black holes from the direct collapse process and characterize the sites where these black hole seeds form. In the pre-reionization epoch, molecular hydrogen (H$_2$) is an efficient coolant, causing gas to…
Large dynamic range numerical simulations of atomic cooling driven collapse of gas in pre-galactic DM haloes with T_vir ~ 10000 K show that the gas loses 90% and more of its angular momentum before rotational support sets in. In a fraction…
We present a new model for the formation of black holes in cosmological simulations, motivated by the first star formation. Black holes form from high density peaks of primordial gas, and grow via both gas accretion and mergers. Massive…
Observations of distant bright quasars suggest that billion solar mass supermassive black holes (SMBHs) were already in place less than a billion years after the Big Bang. Models in which light black hole seeds form by the collapse of…
The photo-dissociation of H$_2$ by a nearby anisotropic source of radiation is seen as a critical component in creating an environment in which a direct collapse black hole may form. Employing radiative transfer we model the effect of…
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…
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…
Models aiming to explain the formation of massive black hole seeds, and in particular the direct collapse scenario, face substantial difficulties. These are rooted in rather ad hoc and fine-tuned initial conditions, such as the simultaneous…
We study the statistics and cosmic evolution of massive black hole seeds formed during major mergers of gas-rich late-type galaxies. Generalizing the results of the hydro-simulations from Mayer et al. 2010, we envision a scenario in which a…
Supermassive black holes are a key ingredient of galaxy evolution. However, their origin is still highly debated. In one of the leading formation scenarios, a black hole of $\sim100$ M$_{\odot}$ results from the collapse of the inner core…
Observational studies show that there is a strong link between the formation and evolution of galaxies and the growth of supermassive black holes (SMBH) at their centers. However, the underlying physics of this observed relation is poorly…
We present a model for the formation of massive black holes ($\sim 1000 \msun$) due to stellar-dynamical processes in the first stellar clusters formed at early cosmic times ($z\sim10-20$). The high redshift black hole seeds form as a…
The collapse of baryons into extremely massive stars with masses exceeding 10^4 M_Sun in a small fraction of protogalaxies at z > 10 is a promising candidate for the origin of supermassive black holes, some of which grow to a billion solar…
We review the current status of knowledge concerning the early phases of star formation during cosmic dawn. This includes the first generations of stars forming in the lowest mass dark matter halos in which cooling and condensation of gas…
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…
Super-massive black holes, with masses larger than a million times that of the Sun, appear to inhabit the centers of all massive galaxies. Cosmologically-motivated theories of galaxy formation need feedback from these super-massive black…