Fluctuations in the high-redshift Lyman–Werner background: close halo pairs as the origin of supermassive black holes

By M. Dijkstra, Zoltán Haiman, A. Mesinger, S. Wyithe. 2008

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The earliest generation of stars and black holes must have established an early ' 'Lyman-Werner' background (LWB) at high redshift, prior to the epoch of reionization. Because of the long mean free path of photons with energies hv 99 per cent of the DM haloes are illuminated by an LW flux within a factor of 2 of the global mean value. However, a small fraction, ∼10 -8 to 10 -6 , of DM haloes with virial temperatures T vir ≥ 10 4 K have a close luminous neighbour within ≤10 kpc, and are exposed to an LW flux exceeding the global mean by a factor of >20, or to J 21,LW > 10 3 (in units of 10 -21 erg s -1 Hz -1 sr -1 cm -2 ). This large LW flux can photodissociate H 2 molecules in the gas collapsing due to atomic cooling in these haloes, and prevent its further cooling and fragmentation. Such close halo pairs therefore provide possible sites in which primordial gas clouds collapse directly into massive black holes (MBH ≈10 4-6 M ⊙ ), and subsequently grow into supermassive (M BH ≥ 10 9 M ⊙ ) black holes by z ≈ 6.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/36358b8c22dfd5decffc6e886eef7ebd6534e6ff

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FORMATION OF PRIMORDIAL SUPERMASSIVE STARS BY RAPID MASS ACCRETION (2013, background): “Previous studies have mostly considered that H2 molecules are destroyed by photodissociating radiation from neighboring stars, showing that the environments for forming the SMSs are extremely rare (e.g., Dijkstra et al. 2008).”
Titans of the early Universe: The Prato statement on the origin of the first supermassive black holes (2018, methodology): “The spatial distribution of radiation intensity is in good agreement between various studies, using either position-based LW radiation modelling (Agarwal et al. 2012; Chon et al. 2016) or probabilistic determination of the radiation field (Dijkstra et al. 2008).”
Observational evidence for intermediate-mass black holes (2017, background): “…direct collapse can only occur in halos close (within 15 kpc) to luminous star-forming galaxies producing sufficient Lyman-Werner ra- diation (e.g., Dijkstra et al. 2014, 2008; Agarwal et al. 2014, 2012; Habouzit et al. 2016) and is thus thought to be a much less common mechanism of IMBH…”
Formation of supermassive black holes (2010, background): “Dijkstra et al (2008) suggest that halos prone to H2 suppression are the small subset of all halos (estimated at ∼ 10−6) that sample the bright–end tail of the fluctuating cosmic UV background, due to the presence of a close luminous neighbour.”
Cosmological simulations of the growth of supermassive black holes and feedback from active galactic nuclei: method and tests (2009, background): “…et al. 2002; Islam, Tayloe & Silk 2003), and direct collapse of matter in high-redshift, low angular momentum haloes, which may give rise to seed BHs with masses ∼105 M (e.g. Loeb & Rasio 1994; Bromm & Loeb 2003; Begelman, Volonteri & Rees 2006; Dijkstra et al. 2008; Volonteri & Natarajan 2009).”
Photodissociation of H2 in protogalaxies: modelling self‐shielding in three‐dimensional simulations (2011, background): “However, with the original high Jcrit,21 value, it has also been shown (Dijkstra et al. 2008) that only one in ≈ 106 haloes – only those with an unusually bright and close neighbour – will see a sufficiently high flux.”
ACCRETION ONTO THE FIRST STELLAR-MASS BLACK HOLES (2007, background): “An appealing alternative scenario for seed black hole formation and accretion was recently discussed by Dijkstra et al. (2008), in which intermediate mass black holes can form by direct collapse in halos (e.g., Bromm & Loeb 2003).”
Doing Science with eLISA: Astrophysics and Cosmology in the Millihertz Regime (2012, background): “…possibly by turbulence and by an intense ultraviolet background light, in an environment of low metallicity (Begelman et al., 2006, Bromm and Loeb, 2003, Dijkstra et al., 2008, Dotan et al., 2011, Haehnelt and Rees, 1993, Koushiappas et al., 2004, Lodato and Natarajan, 2006, Loeb and Rasio, 1994).”
Formation of Supermassive Black Hole Seeds (2016, background): “As we discuss in the next subsections that constraint of a strong LW fluxes requires that DCBH hosting halo should form in the vicinity (about few kpc) of a massive star forming galaxy (Dijkstra et al. 2008; Agarwal et al. 2012; Habouzit et al. 2016b).”
The First Billion Years project: the impact of stellar radiation on the co-evolution of Populations II and III (2012, background): “…gas to be prevented from cooling to < ∼ 104 K via molecular transitions, it is likely that an elevated H2-dissociating radiation field may be required to prevent the formation of molecules (e.g. Dijkstra et al. 2008; Shang et al. 2010; but see also Sethi et al. 2010; Inayoshi & Omukai 2012).”
Blossoms from black hole seeds: properties and early growth regulated by supernova feedback (2016, background): “…or thermodynamical conditions (Loeb & Rasio 1994; Bromm & Loeb 2003; Koushiappas, Bullock & Dekel 2004; Spaans & Silk 2006; Begelman, Volonteri & Rees 2006; Lodato & Natarajan 2006; Dijkstra et al. 2008; Wise, Turk & Abel 2008; Regan & Haehnelt 2009; Latif et al. 2013), making it less common.”
Pathways to massive black holes and compact star clusters in pre-galactic dark matter haloes with virial temperatures ≳10 000 K (2008, background): “Omukai & Nishi (1999), Glover & Brand (2001), Oh & Haiman (2002), Bromm & Loeb (2003) and Dijkstra et al. (2008) have all discussed in considerable detail H2 formation and dissociation in haloes similar to the ones we have simulated here.”
GALAXY PROPERTIES AND UV ESCAPE FRACTIONS DURING THE EPOCH OF REIONIZATION: RESULTS FROM THE RENAISSANCE SIMULATIONS (2016, background): “Massive (104–106 M ) black hole seeding and its feedback (Aykutalp et al. 2014) is also neglected;however, this process is most likely rare (e.g., Dijkstra et al. 2008; Agarwal et al. 2016) and only impacts very few high-redshift galaxies.”
Supermassive black hole formation by direct collapse: keeping protogalactic gas H2 free in dark matter haloes with virial temperatures Tvir > rsim 104 K (2009, methodology): “Dijkstra et al. (2008) used a model for the three–dimensional spatial clustering of halos to estimate this fraction, and found f(J > 103) ∼ 10−6, with an exponential dependence of this result on Jcrit21 .”
Black hole formation in the early Universe (2013, background): “…in units of J21 is required to photodissociate H2 molecules in haloes with virial temperatures >104 K for a radiation temperature of 105 K (Omukai 2001; Johnson & Bromm 2007; Dijkstra et al. 2008; Schleicher et al. 2010; Latif et al. 2011b; Wolcott-Green et al. 2011; Safranek-Shrader et al. 2012).”
Ubiquitous seeding of supermassive black holes by direct collapse (2012, background): “Ithas been argued that a halo can be exposed to a radiation level higher thanJcrit if it lives close to a star forming region (Dijkstra et al. 2008, D08 hereafter).”