Related papers: The cosmic timeline implied by the highest redshif…
Observations have found black holes spanning ten orders of magnitude in mass across most of cosmic history. The Kerr black hole solution is however provisional as its behavior at infinity is incompatible with an expanding universe. Black…
Recent observations with JWST have identified several bright galaxy candidates at $z\gtrsim 10$, some of which appear unusually massive (up to $\sim 10^{11}\ \rm M_{\odot}$). Such early formation of massive galaxies is difficult to…
Growing the supermassive black holes (~10^9 Msun) that power the detected luminous, highest redshift quasars (z > 6) from light seeds - the remnants of the first stars - within ~ 1 Gyr of the Big Bang poses a timing challenge for growth…
The hypothesis of existence of primordial black holes with large masses (\geq 10^6 M\odot), formed at the earliest stages of the Universe evolution, is considered in the paper. The possibility does not contradict some theories, see e.g.…
Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have identified an abundant population of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) already in place during the first few hundred million years of cosmic history. Most of them appear…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has unearthed black holes as massive as $10^{6.2-8.1}M_\odot$ at redshifts of $z \sim 8.5-10.6$ with many systems showing unexpectedly high black hole to stellar mass ratios >=30%, posing a crucial…
The quest for high-redshift quasars has led to a series of record-breaking sources, with the current record holder at $z=7.642$. Here, we show how future detections of $z>8$ quasars impact the constraints on the parameters for black hole…
The rapid assembly of the massive black holes that power the luminous quasars observed at $z \sim 6-7$ remains a puzzle. Various direct collapse models have been proposed to head-start black hole growth from initial seeds with masses $\sim…
One of the fundamental questions about quasars is related to their central supermassive black holes. The reason for the existence of these black holes with such a huge mass is still unclear and various models have been proposed to explain…
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,…
Mass estimates, based on scaling relationships, are presented of central black holes in luminous quasars at a range of redshifts (z < 0.5, 1.2 ~< z ~< 6.3). The data show that very massive (about 10^9 solar masses or larger) black holes…
The discovery of quasar J1342+0928 (z=7.54) reinforces the time compression problem associated with the premature formation of structure in LCDM. Adopting the Planck parameters, we see this quasar barely 690 Myr after the big bang, no more…
Episodic activity of quasars is driving growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) via accretion of baryon gas. In this Letter, we develop a simple method to analyse the duty cycle of quasars up to redshift $z\sim 6$ universe from…
Here we introduce the SEEDZ simulations, a suite of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations exploring the formation and growth of the first massive black holes in the Universe. SEEDZ includes models for Population III star formation,…
The presence of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at high redshifts ($z>5$), as revealed by James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), challenges standard black hole (BH) formation scenarios. We propose a mechanism in which non-annihilating dark…
Extremely massive black holes, with masses $M_{\rm BH} > 10^9 M_\odot$, have been observed at ever higher redshifts. These results create ever tighter constraints on the formation and growth mechanisms of early black holes. Here we show…
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 with up to a $\rm 10^{9}~M_{\odot}$ dwell in the centers of present-day galaxies, and their presence has been confirmed at z $\geq$ 6. Their formation at such early epochs is still an enigma. Different pathways have…
The nature of the seeds of high-redshift supermassive black holes (SMBHs) is a key question in cosmology. Direct collapse black holes (DCBH) that form in pristine, atomic-line cooling halos, illuminated by a Lyman-Werner (LW) UV flux…
JWST observations demonstrate that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) exist by redshifts $z \gtrsim 10$, providing further evidence for "direct collapse" black hole (BH) formation, whereby massive ($\sim 10^{3-5} M_{\odot}$) SMBH seeds are…