Related papers: A Heavy Seed Black Hole Mass Function at High Reds…
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…
The existence of $\approx$10^9 Msun supermassive black holes (SMBHs) within the first billion year of the universe has stimulated numerous ideas for the prompt formation and rapid growth of BHs in the early universe. Here we review ways in…
We analyze the dynamics of low-mass black hole (BH) seeds in the high-redshift ($z\gtrsim5$) Universe using a suite of $[4.5~\mathrm{Mpc}]^3$ and $[9~\mathrm{Mpc}]^3$ BRAHMA cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. The simulations form seeds…
This is the second paper in a series aimed at modeling the black hole (BH) mass function, from the stellar to the (super)massive regime. In the present work we focus on (super)massive BHs and provide an ab-initio computation of their mass…
The nature of the first seeds of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) is currently unknown, with postulated initial masses ranging from $\sim10^5~M_{\odot}$ to as low as $\sim10^2~M_{\odot}$. However, most existing cosmological simulations…
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 discovery of high redshift quasars represents a challenge to the origin of supermassive black holes. Here, two evolutionary scenarios are considered. The first one concerns massive black holes in the local universe, which in a large…
The high redshift ($z>10$) galaxies GHZ9 and UHZ1 observed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are very massive and have exceptionally high black hole-to-star mass ratios with the central black hole masses $M\gtrsim 10^7\rm~M_\odot$.…
Observational constraints on the birth and early evolution of massive black holes (BHs) come from two extreme regimes. At high redshift, quasars signal the rapid growth of billion-solar-mass BHs and indicate that these objects began…
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…
Recent numerical simulations reveal that the isothermal collapse of pristine gas in atomic cooling haloes may result in stellar binaries of supermassive stars with $M_* \gtrsim 10^4\ \mathrm{M}_{\odot}$. For the first time, we compute the…
We investigate the physical conditions for the growth of intermediate mass seed black holes assumed to have formed from remnants of the first generation of massive stars. We follow the collapse of high-sigma halos with Tvir > 1e4 K using…
We use the ASTRID cosmological simulation to forecast massive black hole (MBH) mergers detectable by Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) down to $z=0$. ASTRID directly models MBH dynamical friction, allowing a realistic tracking of…
Recent observations by the James Webb Space Telescope confirm the existence of massive black holes ($>10^6$ $\rm{M_{\odot}}$) beyond the redshift of $z=10$. However, their formation mechanism(s) still remain an open question. Light seed…
Numerous observations have shown that almost all galaxies in our Universe host supermassive black holes (SMBHs), but there is still much debate about their formation and evolutionary processes. Recently, gravitational waves (GWs) have been…
With the upcoming space- and Moon-based gravitational-wave detectors, LISA and LGWA respectively, a new era of GW astronomy will begin with the possibility of detections of the mergers of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) and…
The existence of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) with masses greater than $\sim 10^{9}M_{\odot}$ at high redshift ($z\gtrsim 7$) is difficult to accommodate in standard astrophysical scenarios. We study the possibility that (nearly)…
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 most massive black holes observed in the Universe weigh up to $\sim 10^{10} \, \mathrm{M_{\odot}}$, nearly independent of redshift. Reaching these final masses likely required copious accretion and several major mergers. Employing a…
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…