English
Related papers

Related papers: Turbulent Cold Flows Gave Birth to the First Quasa…

200 papers

There is growing observational evidence for a population of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galactic bulges. We examine in detail the conditions under which these black holes must have originated from primordial black holes (PBHs). We…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-07 Rachel Bean , Joao Magueijo

The origin of rare and elusive ultramassive black holes (UMBH, with MBH > 1e10 Msun) is an open question. Using the large volume cosmological hydrodynamic simulation ASTRID, we report on the formation of an extremely massive UMBH with MBH ~…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-12-07 Yueying Ni , Tiziana DiMatteo , Nianyi Chen , Rupert Croft , Simeon Bird

Scalar condensates with large expectation values can form in the early universe, for example, in theories with supersymmetry. The condensate can undergo fragmentation into Q-balls before decaying. If the Q-balls dominate the energy density…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2017-11-15 Eric Cotner , Alexander Kusenko

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 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

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are common in local galactic nuclei, and SMBHs as massive as several billion solar masses already exist at redshift z=6. These earliest SMBHs may grow by the combination of radiation-pressure-limited…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-04 Zoltán Haiman

Supermassive primordial stars with masses exceeding $\sim10^5\,M_{\odot}$ that form in atomically cooled halos are the leading candidates for the origin of high-redshift quasars with $z>6$. Recent numerical simulations, however, find that…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2021-12-20 Tyrone E. Woods , Samuel Patrick , Daniel J. Whalen , Alexander Heger

Primordial supermassive stars (SMSs) formed in atomic-cooling halos at z ~ 15 - 20 are leading candidates for the seeds of the first quasars. Past numerical studies of the evolution of SMSs have typically assumed constant accretion rates…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2021-07-21 Tyrone E. Woods , Samuel Patrick , Jacob S. Elford , Daniel J. Whalen , Alexander Heger

Evidence has accumulated that there are supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the centers of most galaxies, and that these were formed in the very early universe by some as yet unknown process. In particular, there is evidence [15] that at…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2024-03-05 Tom Banks , Willy Fischler

We investigate the abundance of Super-Massive Black Hole (SMBH) seeds in primordial galaxy halos. We explore the assumption that dark matter halos outgrowing a critical halo mass M_c have some probability p of having spawned a SMBH seed.…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-04-03 Johannes Buchner , Ezequiel Treister , Franz E. Bauer , Lia F. Sartori , Kevin Schawinski

Observational evidence suggests that some very large supermassive black holes (SMBHs) already existed less than 1 Gyr after the Big Bang. Explaining the formation and growth of the 'seeds' of these SMBHs is quite challenging. We explore the…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-09-14 Caroline Van Borm

Understanding how supermassive black holes (SMBHs) form in the early universe is one of the most challenging problems in astrophysics. Their high abundance in the first billion years, as observed by the James Webb Space Telescope, hints…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-04-21 Manish Kataria , Kanak Saha , Bruce Elmegreen

Observations of quasars at redshifts z > 6 reveal that 10^9 Msol supermassive black holes (SMBHs) had already formed when the Universe was < 0.9 Gyr old. One hypothesis for the origins of these SMBHs is that they grew from the remnants of…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-17 Takamitsu L. Tanaka , Miao Li , Zoltán Haiman

The supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are ubiquitous in the center of galaxies, although the origin of their massive seeds is still unknown. In this paper, we investigate the SMBHs formation from the QCD axion bubbles. In this case, the…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2024-04-03 Hai-Jun Li , Ying-Quan Peng , Wei Chao , Yu-Feng Zhou

The origin of supermassive black holes is an open question that has been explored considering gas- and collision-based formation channels to explain the high number of quasars observed in the early Universe. According to numerical…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-07-02 P. A. Solar , B. Reinoso , D. R. G. Schleicher , R. S. Klessen , Robi Banerjee

The collapse of supermassive primordial stars in hot, atomically-cooled halos may have given birth to the first quasars at $z \sim$ 15 - 20. Recent numerical simulations of these rapidly accreting stars reveal that they are cool, red…

We explore the consequences of a novel but increasingly well-supported hypothesis that supermassive black holes may have formed from primordial black holes form ed prior to, and rapidly growing in, the radiation-dominated universe. We show…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-02-11 Jeremy Mould , Adam Batten

The discovery of luminous quasars at redshifts up to 7.5 demonstrates the existence of several billion M_sun supermassive black holes (SMBHs) less than a billion years after the Big Bang. They are accompanied by intense star formation in…

The emergence of the first black holes during the first billion years of cosmic history marks a key event in cosmology. Their formation is part of the overall process of ending the cosmic dark ages, when the first stars appeared in low-mass…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-07-26 Aaron Smith , Volker Bromm

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2019-02-21 John H. Wise , John A. Regan , Brian W. O'Shea , Michael L. Norman , Turlough P. Downes , Hao Xu