Rapid Growth of High-Redshift Black Holes

By M. Volonteri, Martin J. Rees. 2005

309 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We discuss a model for the early assembly of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of galaxies that trace their hierarchical buildup far up into the dark halo "merger tree." Motivated by the observations of luminous quasars around redshift z ≈ 6 with SMBH masses ≈109 M☉, we assess the possibility of an early phase of stable supercritical quasi-spherical accretion in the BHs hosted by metal-free halos with virial temperature Tvir > 104 K. We assume that the first "seed" black holes formed with intermediate masses following the collapse of the first generation of stars in minihalos collapsing at z ~ 20 from high-σ density fluctuations. In high-redshift halos with Tvir > 104 K, conditions exist for the formation of a fat disk of gas at Tgas ≈ 5000-10,000 K. Cooling via hydrogen atomic lines is in fact effective in these comparatively massive halos. The cooling and collapse of an initially spherical configuration of gas leads to a rotationally supported disk at the center of the halo if baryons preserve their specific angular momentum during collapse. The conditions for the formation of the gas disk and accretion onto central black holes out of this supply of gas are investigated, as well as the feedback of the emission onto the host and onto the intergalactic medium. We find that even a short phase of supercritical accretion eases the requirements set by the z ≈ 6 quasars.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b83847a19134e2365c4d26a64b6bb548b1d65b56

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Citations in the corpus

Growth of Structure Seeded by Primordial Black Holes (2006, background): “In others, the seeds are the remnants of Population III stars (Shapiro 2005; Volonteri & Rees 2005), or they might be primordial.”
The first galaxies : assembly, cooling and the onset of turbulence (2008, background): “…2006; Spaans & Silk 2006; Wise et al. 2007), or via merging and accretion of gas on to the compact remnants of Pop III stars (Madau & Rees 2001; Schneider et al. 2002; Islam et al. 2003; Volonteri et al. 2003; Volonteri & Rees 2005; Johnson & Bromm 2007; Pelupessy et al. 2007; Wise et al. 2007).”
Faint high-redshift AGN in the Chandra deep field south: the evolution of the AGN luminosity function and black hole demography (2011, background): “…models (Madau & Rees 2001; Lodato & Natarajan 2006, 2007; Volonteri 2010; Volonteri & Begelman 2010; Begelman 2010), and accretion scenarios (Volonteri & Rees 2005; Dotti et al. 2010; Fanidakis et al. 2011; King et al. 2008), would require to at least a threefold increase in the exposure…”
Four Quasars above Redshift 6 Discovered by the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey (2007, background): “Forming such massive black holes within the first billion years of the universe provides a challenge to models of galaxy formation, black hole formation and black hole growth (Bromley et al. 2004; Yoo & Miralda-Escudé 2004; Shapiro 2005; Volonteri & Rees 2005; King & Pringle 2006).”
Observational evidence for intermediate-mass black holes (2017, background): “The short phases of super-Eddington growth, followed by longer periods of quiescence, expected to occur in IMBHs (e.g., Volonteri & Rees 2005; Madau et al. 2014; Pezzulli et al. 2016) could also decrease the probability of detecting accreting BHs (Pezzulli et al. 2017).”
SUPER-CRITICAL GROWTH OF MASSIVE BLACK HOLES FROM STELLAR-MASS SEEDS (2014, background): “The assembly of pregalactic MBHs following a phase of super-critical quasi-spherical accretion in metal-free halos has been previously explored by Volonteri & Rees (2005).”
The aftermath of the first stars: massive black holes (2006, background): “…holes must have been rapid enough to account for the powerful quasars observed at redshifts of z >∼ 6 (e.g. Fan et al. 2004, 2006), believed to be fueled by accretion onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs) with masses ∼ 109 M⊙ (e.g. Haiman & Loeb 2001; Volonteri & Rees 2005; Volonteri & Rees 2006).”
Supermassive black hole formation by direct collapse: keeping protogalactic gas H2 free in dark matter haloes with virial temperatures Tvir > rsim 104 K (2009, background): “…OH02]; Bromm & Loeb 2003 [hereafter BL03]; Koushiappas et al. 2004; Lodato & Natarajan 2006; Spaans & Silk 2006; Begelman et al. 2006; Volonteri et al. 2008), possibly onto a pre–existing smaller seed BH (Volonteri & Rees 2005), or through the intermediate state of a very massive star (BL03).”
Formation of supermassive black holes (2010, background): “This numerical experiment brings up the question on how black holes can handle sprees, that is if/when the supply is super-critical (Volonteri and Rees, 2005) the excess”
Hyper-Eddington accretion flows on to massive black holes (2015, background): “However, the hyper-Eddington accretion phase would be quenched by non-spherical effects for higher DM and/or BH mass in the following way (e.g. Volonteri & Rees 2005; Wyithe & Loeb 2012; Volonteri, Silk & Dubus 2015).”
Can Supermassive Black Holes Form in Metal-enriched High-Redshift Protogalaxies? (2008, background): “Volonteri & Rees (2005) arrived at similar conclusions, by considering Bondi accretion onto a stellar seed BH, which can significantly exceed the Eddington rate at the gas density and temperature in a similar halo.”
Formation of Supermassive Black Hole Seeds (2016, background): “An alternative scenario could be 1 the monolithic collapse of a protogalactic gas cloud into a massive BH so-called the direct collapse model (Rees 1984; Loeb & Rasio 1994; Volonteri & Rees 2005; Begelman et al. 2006; Spaans & Silk 2006; Latif et al. 2011a; Ferrara et al. 2014).”
EDDINGTON-LIMITED ACCRETION AND THE BLACK HOLE MASS FUNCTION AT REDSHIFT 6 (2010, background): “This led some people to propose that episodes of super-Eddington accretion at very high redshift were necessary (Volonteri & Rees 2005; Kawakatu & Wada 2009).”
Quasars at z = 6: The Survival of the Fittest (2006, methodology): “We refer the reader to Volonteri & Rees (2005) and Lodato & Natarajan (2006) for a detailed description of the model.”
What drives the growth of black holes (2011, background): “…BHs (e.g., Johnson & Bromm, 2007; Alvarez et al., 2009), making it difficult to construct mechanisms by which such BH seeds can achive the high accretion rates required to produce the high-mass quasars observed at z & 6 (e.g., Haiman & Loeb, 2001; Volonteri & Rees, 2005; Volonteri et al., 2006).”
THE ASSEMBLY OF SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES AT HIGH REDSHIFTS (2008, background): “…is the so-called “direct-collapse” model, wherein BHs with m ∼ 104–6 M are formed rapidly from gas cooling via atomic H in halos with virial temperature T 104 K (Oh & Haiman 2002; Bromm & Loeb 2003; Volonteri & Rees 2005; Begelman et al. 2006; Spaans & Silk 2006; Lodato & Natarajan 2006).”