scholarly journals Formation of supermassive black hole seeds in nuclear star clusters via gas accretion and runaway collisions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arpan Das ◽  
Dominik R G Schleicher ◽  
Nathan W C Leigh ◽  
Tjarda C N Boekholt
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
High Redshift ◽  
Star Clusters ◽  
Gas Reservoir ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
Stellar Collisions ◽  
Key Variables ◽  
Chaotic Nature ◽  
Gas Accretion

Abstract More than two hundred supermassive black holes (SMBHs) of masses ≳ 109 M⊙ have been discovered at z ≳ 6. One promising pathway for the formation of SMBHs is through the collapse of supermassive stars (SMSs) with masses ∼103 − 5 M⊙ into seed black holes which could grow upto few times 109 M⊙ SMBHs observed at z ∼ 7. In this paper, we explore how SMSs with masses ∼103 − 5 M⊙ could be formed via gas accretion and runaway stellar collisions in high-redshift, metal-poor nuclear star clusters (NSCs) using idealised N-body simulations. We explore physically motivated accretion scenarios, e.g. Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton accretion and Eddington accretion, as well as simplified scenarios such as constant accretions. While gas is present, the accretion timescale remains considerably shorter than the timescale for collisions with the most massive object (MMO). However, overall the timescale for collisions between any two stars in the cluster can become comparable or shorter than the accretion timescale, hence collisions still play a crucial role in determining the final mass of the SMSs. We find that the problem is highly sensitive to the initial conditions and our assumed recipe for the accretion, due to the highly chaotic nature of the problem. The key variables that determine the mass growth mechanism are the mass of the MMO and the gas reservoir that is available for the accretion. Depending on different conditions, SMSs of masses ∼103 − 5 M⊙ can form for all three accretion scenarios considered in this work.

scholarly journals Intermediate-mass black holes from stellar mergers in young star clusters

2021 ◽  
Vol 507 (4) ◽  
pp. 5132-5143
Author(s):  
Ugo N Di Carlo ◽  
Michela Mapelli ◽  
Mario Pasquato ◽  
Sara Rastello ◽  
Alessandro Ballone ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Star Clusters ◽  
Mass Range ◽  
Young Star ◽  
Intermediate Mass ◽  
Stellar Collisions ◽  
Low Metallicity ◽  
Young Star Clusters ◽  
Stellar Mergers ◽  
Intermediate Mass Black Holes

ABSTRACT Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in the mass range $10^2\!-\!10^5\, \mathrm{M_{\odot }}$ bridge the gap between stellar black holes (BHs) and supermassive BHs. Here, we investigate the possibility that IMBHs form in young star clusters via runaway collisions and BH mergers. We analyse 104 simulations of dense young star clusters, featuring up-to-date stellar wind models and prescriptions for core collapse and (pulsational) pair instability. In our simulations, only nine IMBHs out of 218 form via binary BH mergers, with a mass ∼100–140 M⊙. This channel is strongly suppressed by the low escape velocity of our star clusters. In contrast, IMBHs with masses up to ∼438 M⊙ efficiently form via runaway stellar collisions, especially at low metallicity. Up to ∼0.2 per cent of all the simulated BHs are IMBHs, depending on progenitor’s metallicity. The runaway formation channel is strongly suppressed in metal-rich (Z = 0.02) star clusters, because of stellar winds. IMBHs are extremely efficient in pairing with other BHs: ∼70 per cent of them are members of a binary BH at the end of the simulations. However, we do not find any IMBH–BH merger. More massive star clusters are more efficient in forming IMBHs: ∼8 per cent (∼1 per cent) of the simulated clusters with initial mass 104–3 × 104 M⊙ (103–5 × 103 M⊙) host at least one IMBH.

scholarly journals Collisions in primordial star clusters

2018 ◽  
Vol 614 ◽  
pp. A14 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Reinoso ◽  
D. R. G. Schleicher ◽  
M. Fellhauer ◽  
R. S. Klessen ◽  
T. C. N. Boekholt
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Massive Stars ◽  
Star Clusters ◽  
Parameter Study ◽  
Effective Parameters ◽  
Intermediate Mass ◽  
Stellar Collisions ◽  
Accretion Rates ◽  
Relevant Role ◽  
Intermediate Mass Black Holes

Collisions were suggested to potentially play a role in the formation of massive stars in present day clusters, and have likely been relevant during the formation of massive stars and intermediate mass black holes within the first star clusters. In the early Universe, the first stellar clusters were particularly dense, as fragmentation typically only occurred at densities above 109 cm−3, and the radii of the protostars were enhanced as a result of larger accretion rates, suggesting a potentially more relevant role of stellar collisions. We present here a detailed parameter study to assess how the number of collisions and the mass growth of the most massive object depend on the properties of the cluster. We also characterize the time evolution with three effective parameters: the time when most collisions occur, the duration of the collisions period, and the normalization required to obtain the total number of collisions. We apply our results to typical Population III (Pop. III) clusters of about 1000 M⊙, finding that a moderate enhancement of the mass of the most massive star by a factor of a few can be expected. For more massive Pop. III clusters as expected in the first atomic cooling halos, we expect a more significant enhancement by a factor of 15–32. We therefore conclude that collisions in massive Pop. III clusters were likely relevant to form the first intermediate mass black holes.

scholarly journals Star formation in accretion discs and SMBH growth

2020 ◽  
Vol 493 (3) ◽  
pp. 3732-3743 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander J Dittmann ◽  
M Coleman Miller
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Star Formation ◽  
Active Galactic Nuclei ◽  
Accretion Rate ◽  
High Redshift ◽  
Galactic Nuclei ◽  
Compact Objects ◽  
Accretion Discs ◽  
Massive Black Holes ◽  
Gas Accretion

ABSTRACT Accretion discs around active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are potentially unstable to star formation at large radii. We note that when the compact objects formed from some of these stars spiral into the central supermassive black hole (SMBH), there is no radiative feedback and therefore the accretion rate is not limited by radiation forces. Using a set of accretion disc models, we calculate the accretion rate on to the central SMBH in both gas and compact objects. We find that the time-scale for an SMBH to double in mass can decrease by factors ranging from ∼0.7 to as low as ∼0.1 in extreme cases, compared to gas accretion alone. Our results suggest that the formation of extremely massive black holes at high redshift may occur without prolonged super-Eddington gas accretion or very massive seed black holes. We comment on potential observational signatures as well as implications for other observations of AGNs.

scholarly journals Formation and Evolution of Massive Black Holes in Star Clusters

2005 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 350-353
Author(s):  
Holger Baumgardt ◽  
Junichiro Makino ◽  
Simon Portegies Zwart
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Black Hole ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Star Clusters ◽  
Dynamical Evolution ◽  
Young Star ◽  
Cluster Center ◽  
Massive Black Hole ◽  
Massive Black Holes ◽  
Equilibrium Profile

AbstractWe present results of N-body simulations on the formation of massive black holes by run-away merging in young star clusters and the later dynamical evolution of star clusters containing massive black holes. We determine the initial conditions necessary for run-away merging to form a massive black hole and study the equilibrium profile that is established in the cluster center as a result of the interaction of stars with the central black hole. Our results show that star clusters which contain black holes have projected luminosity profiles that can be fitted by standard King models. The presence of massive black holes in (post-)core collapse clusters is therefore ruled out by our simulations.

scholarly journals The mass assembly of high-redshift black holes

2020 ◽  
Vol 500 (2) ◽  
pp. 2146-2158
Author(s):  
Olmo Piana ◽  
Pratika Dayal ◽  
Marta Volonteri ◽  
Tirthankar Roy Choudhury
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Black Hole ◽  
High Redshift ◽  
Mass Range ◽  
Gas Content ◽  
Initial Growth ◽  
Black Hole Growth ◽  
Mass Assembly ◽  
Halo Masses ◽  
Gas Accretion

ABSTRACT We use the Delphi semi-analytic model to study the mass assembly and properties of high-redshift (z > 4) black holes over a wide mass range, $10^3 \lt M_{\rm bh}/{\rm \rm M_\odot }\lt 10^{10}$. Our black hole growth implementation includes a critical halo mass ($M_{\mathrm{ h}}^{\mathrm{ crit}}$) below which the black hole is starved and above which it is allowed to grow either at the Eddington limit or proportionally to the gas content of the galaxy. As a consequence, after an initial growth phase dominated by black hole mergers down to z ∼ 7 (9), supermassive black holes in z = 4 halo masses of $M_\mathrm{ h}|_{z=4} \sim 10^{11.75} \, (10^{13.4}) \, {\rm \rm M_\odot }$ mainly grow by gas accretion from the interstellar medium. In particular, we find that (i) while most of the accretion occurs in the major branch for $M_\mathrm{ h}|_{z=4} \sim 10^{11\!-\!12} \, {\rm \rm M_\odot }$ haloes, accretion in secondary branches plays a significant role in assembling the black hole mass in higher mass haloes ($M_\mathrm{ h}|_{z=4} \gtrsim 10^{12} \, {\rm \rm M_\odot }$); (ii) while the Eddington ratio increases with decreasing redshift for low-mass ($M_{\mathrm{ bh}} \lt 10^5 \, {\rm \rm M_\odot }$) black holes, it shows the opposite trend for larger masses. In addition, since the accretion rate depends on the gas mass present in the host halo, the duty cycle of the Eddington-limited accretion phase – which can last up to ≈650 Myr – is crucially linked to the joint assembly history of the black hole and its host halo.

Growth of intermediate mass black holes in first star clusters

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (S351) ◽  
pp. 220-223
Author(s):  
Yuya Sakurai ◽  
Naoki Yoshida ◽  
Michiko S. Fujii
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Star Clusters ◽  
Star Cluster ◽  
Galaxy Mergers ◽  
Intermediate Mass ◽  
Tidal Disruption ◽  
Stellar Collisions ◽  
Gas Supply ◽  
Intermediate Mass Black Holes

AbstractWe study runaway stellar collisions in primordial star clusters and formation of intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs). Using cosmological simulations, we identify eight atomic-cooling halos in which the star clusters form. We follow stellar and dark matter (DM) dynamics for 3Myr using hybrid N-body simulations. We find that the runaway stellar collisions occur in all star clusters and IMBHs with masses ∼400–1900M⊙ form. Performing additional N-body simulations, we explore evolutions of the IMBHs in the star clusters for 15 Myr. The IMBH masses grow via stellar tidal disruption events (TDEs) to ∼700–2500 M⊙. The TDE rates are ∼0.3–1.3 Myr−1. DM motions affect the star cluster evolutions and reduce the TDE rates. The IMBHs may subsequently grow to SMBHs by gas supply through galaxy mergers or large-scale gas inflows, or they may remain within or around the clusters.

scholarly journals Testing the evolution of correlations between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies using eight strongly lensed quasars

2020 ◽  
Vol 501 (1) ◽  
pp. 269-280
Author(s):  
Xuheng Ding ◽  
Tommaso Treu ◽  
Simon Birrer ◽  
Adriano Agnello ◽  
Dominique Sluse ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Hubble Space Telescope ◽  
High Redshift ◽  
Galactic Nuclei ◽  
Host Galaxy ◽  
Wide Field ◽  
Host Galaxies ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Instrumental Resolution ◽  
The Moment

ABSTRACT One of the main challenges in using high-redshift active galactic nuclei (AGNs) to study the correlations between the mass of a supermassive black hole ($\mathcal {M}_{\rm BH}$) and the properties of its active host galaxy is instrumental resolution. Strong lensing magnification effectively increases instrumental resolution and thus helps to address this challenge. In this work, we study eight strongly lensed AGNs with deep Hubble Space Telescope imaging, using the lens modelling code lenstronomy to reconstruct the image of the source. Using the reconstructed brightness of the host galaxy, we infer the host galaxy stellar mass based on stellar population models. $\mathcal {M}_{\rm BH}$ are estimated from broad emission lines using standard methods. Our results are in good agreement with recent work based on non-lensed AGNs, demonstrating the potential of using strongly lensed AGNs to extend the study of the correlations to higher redshifts. At the moment, the sample size of lensed AGNs is small and thus they provide mostly a consistency check on systematic errors related to resolution for non-lensed AGNs. However, the number of known lensed AGNs is expected to increase dramatically in the next few years, through dedicated searches in ground- and space-based wide-field surveys, and they may become a key diagnostic of black holes and galaxy co-evolution.

scholarly journals EDGE: a new approach to suppressing numerical diffusion in adaptive mesh simulations of galaxy formation

2020 ◽  
Vol 501 (2) ◽  
pp. 1755-1765
Author(s):  
Andrew Pontzen ◽  
Martin P Rey ◽  
Corentin Cadiou ◽  
Oscar Agertz ◽  
Romain Teyssier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Star Formation ◽  
Galaxy Formation ◽  
Adaptive Mesh Refinement ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Dwarf Galaxy ◽  
High Redshift ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Adaptive Mesh ◽  
Numerical Diffusion

ABSTRACT We introduce a new method to mitigate numerical diffusion in adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) simulations of cosmological galaxy formation, and study its impact on a simulated dwarf galaxy as part of the ‘EDGE’ project. The target galaxy has a maximum circular velocity of $21\, \mathrm{km}\, \mathrm{s}^{-1}$ but evolves in a region that is moving at up to $90\, \mathrm{km}\, \mathrm{s}^{-1}$ relative to the hydrodynamic grid. In the absence of any mitigation, diffusion softens the filaments feeding our galaxy. As a result, gas is unphysically held in the circumgalactic medium around the galaxy for $320\, \mathrm{Myr}$, delaying the onset of star formation until cooling and collapse eventually triggers an initial starburst at z = 9. Using genetic modification, we produce ‘velocity-zeroed’ initial conditions in which the grid-relative streaming is strongly suppressed; by design, the change does not significantly modify the large-scale structure or dark matter accretion history. The resulting simulation recovers a more physical, gradual onset of star formation starting at z = 17. While the final stellar masses are nearly consistent ($4.8 \times 10^6\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$ and $4.4\times 10^6\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$ for unmodified and velocity-zeroed, respectively), the dynamical and morphological structure of the z = 0 dwarf galaxies are markedly different due to the contrasting histories. Our approach to diffusion suppression is suitable for any AMR zoom cosmological galaxy formation simulations, and is especially recommended for those of small galaxies at high redshift.

scholarly journals The Process of Stellar Tidal Disruption by Supermassive Black Holes

2021 ◽  
Vol 217 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
E. M. Rossi ◽  
N. C. Stone ◽  
J. A. P. Law-Smith ◽  
M. Macleod ◽  
G. Lodato ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Numerical Models ◽  
Binary Star ◽  
Tidal Disruption ◽  
Massive Black Hole ◽  
Accretion Flows ◽  
Simple Order ◽  
Order Of Magnitude ◽  
A Chain

AbstractTidal disruption events (TDEs) are among the brightest transients in the optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray sky. These flares are set into motion when a star is torn apart by the tidal field of a massive black hole, triggering a chain of events which is – so far – incompletely understood. However, the disruption process has been studied extensively for almost half a century, and unlike the later stages of a TDE, our understanding of the disruption itself is reasonably well converged. In this Chapter, we review both analytical and numerical models for stellar tidal disruption. Starting with relatively simple, order-of-magnitude physics, we review models of increasing sophistication, the semi-analytic “affine formalism,” hydrodynamic simulations of the disruption of polytropic stars, and the most recent hydrodynamic results concerning the disruption of realistic stellar models. Our review surveys the immediate aftermath of disruption in both typical and more unusual TDEs, exploring how the fate of the tidal debris changes if one considers non-main sequence stars, deeply penetrating tidal encounters, binary star systems, and sub-parabolic orbits. The stellar tidal disruption process provides the initial conditions needed to model the formation of accretion flows around quiescent massive black holes, and in some cases may also lead to directly observable emission, for example via shock breakout, gravitational waves or runaway nuclear fusion in deeply plunging TDEs.

scholarly journals Predicting the broad-lines polarization emitted by supermassive binary black holes

2019 ◽  
Vol 623 ◽  
pp. A56 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Savić ◽  
F. Marin ◽  
L. Č. Popović
Keyword(s):  
Black Holes ◽  
Emission Lines ◽  
Polarization Angle ◽  
Broad Line ◽  
Line Profiles ◽  
Binary Black Holes ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Line Shapes ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
Balmer Lines

Context. Some Type-1 active galactic nuclei (AGN) show extremely asymmetric Balmer lines with the broad peak redshifted or blueshifted by thousands of km s−1. These AGN may be good candidates for supermassive binary black holes (SMBBHs). The complex line shapes can be due to the complex kinematics of the two broad line regions (BLRs). Therefore other methods should be applied to confirm the SMBBHs. One of them is spectropolarimetry. Aims. We rely on numerical modeling of the polarimetry of binary black holes systems, since polarimetry is highly sensitive to geometry, in order to find the specific influence of supermassive binary black hole (SMBBH) geometry and dynamics on polarized parameters across the broad line profiles. We apply our method to SMBBHs in which both components are assumed to be AGN with distances at the subparsec scale. Methods. We used a Monte Carlo radiative transfer code that simulates the geometry, dynamics, and emission pattern of a binary system where two black holes are getting increasingly close. Each gravitational well is accompanied by its own BLR and the whole system is surrounded by an accretion flow from the distant torus. We examined the emission line deformation and predicted the associated polarization that could be observed. Results. We modeled scattering-induced broad line polarization for various BLR geometries with complex kinematics. We find that the presence of SMBBHs can produce complex polarization angle profiles φ and strongly affect the polarized and unpolarized line profiles. Depending on the phase of the SMBBH, the resulting double-peaked emission lines either show red or blue peak dominance, or both the peaks can have the same intensity. In some cases, the whole line profile appears as a single Gaussian line, hiding the true nature of the source. Conclusions. Our results suggest that future observation with the high resolution spectropolarimetry of optical broad emission lines could play an important role in detecting subparsec SMBBHs.

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