Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics | 2016 July 06
McDonald Observatory, University of Texas, Austin
Astronomers ... have discovered evidence for an unusual kind of black hole born extremely early in the universe. They showed that a recently discovered unusual source of intense radiation is likely powered by a “direct-collapse black hole,” a type of object predicted by theorists more than a decade ago. ...
These direct-collapse black holes may be the solution to a long-standing puzzle in astronomy: How did supermassive black holes form in the early epochs of the universe? There is strong evidence for their existence, as they are needed to power the highly luminous quasars detected in the young universe. However, there are several problems that should prevent their formation, and the conventional growth process is much too slow. ...
The accretion theory does not explain supermassive black holes in extremely distant - and therefore young - quasars. Visible to us despite its distance of billions of light-years, a quasar's incredible brightness comes from matter spiraling into a supermassive black hole, heating to millions of degrees, creating jets that shine as beacons across the universe. ...
Begin with a "primordial cloud of hydrogen and helium, suffused in a sea of ultraviolet radiation," Bromm said. "You crunch this cloud in the gravitational field of a dark-matter halo. Normally, the cloud would be able to cool, and fragment to form stars. However, the ultraviolet photons keep the gas hot, thus suppressing any star formation. These are the desired, near-miraculous conditions: collapse without fragmentation! As the gas gets more and more compact, eventually you have the conditions for a massive black hole." ...
Evidence for a direct collapse black hole in the Lyman α source CR7 - Aaron Smith, Volker Bromm, Abraham Loeb
- Monthly Notices of the RAS 460(3):3143 (2016 Aug 11) DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw1129
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1602.07639 > 24 Feb 2016 (v1), 10 May 2016 (v2)