ACCRETION ONTO “SEED” BLACK HOLES IN THE FIRST GALAXIES

By Miloš Milosavljevi, V. Bromm, Sean M. Couch, And S Peng Oh. 2008

138 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The validity of the hypothesis that the massive black holes in high redshift quasars grew from stellar-sized “seeds” is contingent on a seed's ability to double its mass every few 10 million years. This requires that the seed accrete at approximately the Eddington-limited rate. In the specific case of radiatively efficient quasi-radial accretion in a metal-poor protogalactic medium, for which the Bondi accretion rate is often prescribed in cosmological simulations of massive black hole formation, we examine the effects of the radiation emitted near the black hole's event horizon on the structure of the surrounding gas flow. We find that photoheating and radiation pressure from photoionization significantly reduce the steady-state accretion rate and potentially render the quasi-radial accretion flow unsteady and inefficient. The time-averaged accretion rate is always a small fraction of the “Bondi” accretion rate calculated ignoring radiative feedback. The pressure of Lyα photons trapped near the H ii region surrounding the black hole may further attenuate the inflow. These results suggest that an alternative to quasi-radial, radiatively efficient Bondi-like accretion should be sought to explain the rapid growth of quasar-progenitor seed black holes.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b97a0684385bd135a313ffd54e45de2e5ba2cb6e

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Citations in the corpus

Hyper-Eddington accretion flows on to massive black holes (2015, methodology): “A similar episodic behavior of the accretion rate for a constant radiative efficiency has been already described in previous works (e.g. Ciotti & Ostriker 2001; Milosavljević et al. 2009; Milosavljević, Couch & Bromm 2009; Park & Ricotti 2011, 2012).”
SUPER-CRITICAL GROWTH OF MASSIVE BLACK HOLES FROM STELLAR-MASS SEEDS (2014, background): “…low-mass dark matter halos, as feedback effects resulting from the accretion process itself are expected to dramatically affect gas inflow and may result in sub-Eddington rates and negligible mass growth (Johnson & Bromm 2007; Pelupessy et al. 2007; Alvarez et al. 2009; Milosavljevic et al. 2009).”
Building up the Population III initial mass function from cosmological initial conditions (2016, background): “From the expressions in the above-mentioned studies, we estimate Nscat ≃ 100 for the ionized region and one to two orders of magnitude higher in a similarly sized neutral region (e.g. Bithell 1990; Haehnelt 1995; McKee & Tan 2008).”
Ubiquitous seeding of supermassive black holes by direct collapse (2012, background): “Both the radiation from the Pop III progenitor star (e.g. Yoshida 2006; Johnson & Bromm 2007; Alvarez et al. 2009) and the radiation emitted in the accretion process itself (e.g. Milosavljević et al. 2009; Park & Ricotti 2011; Li 2011), result in feedback which might slow down gas accretion.”
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): “…maximum allowed steady accretion rate is significantly reduced, at least in spherical symmetry (e.g. Milosavljevic et al. 2009a), suggesting that accretion must be intermittent, with a time–averaged rate well below the Eddington–limit (e.g. Ciotti & Ostriker 2001, 2007; Milosavljevic et al. 2009b).”
DWARF GALAXIES WITH OPTICAL SIGNATURES OF ACTIVE MASSIVE BLACK HOLES (2013, background): “Understanding the radiative properties of BHs in this mass range is important for models of the impact of mini-quasars on reionization and the formation of the first galaxies (e.g., Milosavljević et al. 2009).”
Stellar black holes at the dawn of the universe (2011, background): “However, feedback from Bondi-Hoyle accretion to solitary black holes significantly suppresses both any further inflow (Alvarez et al. 2009; Milosavljevic et al. 2009) and the consequent injection of radiation and high-energy particles to the surrounding medium.”