The aftermath of the first stars: massive black holes

By Jarrett L. Johnson, Volker Bromm. 2006

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We investigate the evolution of the primordial gas surrounding the first massive black holes formed by the collapse of Population III stars at redshifts z≥ 20. Carrying out three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations using GADGET, we study the dynamical, thermal and chemical evolution of the first relic H II regions. We also carry out simulations of the mergers of relic H II regions with neighbouring neutral minihaloes, which contain high-density primordial gas that could accrete on to a Population III remnant black hole. We find that there may have been a significant time delay, of the order of ∼10 8 yr, between black hole formation and the onset of efficient accretion. The build-up of supermassive black holes, believed to power the z ≥ 6 quasars observed in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, therefore faces a crucial early bottleneck. More massive seed black holes may thus be required, such as those formed by the direct collapse of a primordial gas cloud facilitated by atomic line cooling. The high optical depth to Lyman-Werner (LW) photons that results from the high fraction of H 2 molecules that form in relic H II regions, combined with the continued formation of H 2 inside the dynamically expanding relic H II region, leads to shielding of the molecules inside these regions at least until a critical background LW flux of ∼10 -24 erg s -1 cm -2 Hz -1 sr -1 is established. Furthermore, we find that a high fraction of deuterium hydride (HD) molecules, X HD ≥ 10 -7 , is formed, potentially enabling the formation of Population 11.5 stars, with masses of the order of ∼ 10 M ⊙ , during later stages of structure formation when the relic H region gas is assembled into a sufficiently deep potential well to gravitationally confine the gas again.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f0521558fd80d9df368ba98017a95697b39172fd

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Citations in the corpus

Titans of the early Universe: The Prato statement on the origin of the first supermassive black holes (2018, background): “…to have been ‘born starving’, and unable to grow substantially via accretion early in the Universe, particularly due to their strong ionising feedback and possible ejection from their halos via dynamical 3-body interactions (e.g., Johnson & Bromm 2007; Whalen & Fryer 2012; Smith et al. 2018).”
The first galaxies : assembly, cooling and the onset of turbulence (2008, methodology): “On the other hand, if mergers are absent or incoming haloes are not sufficiently massive, accretion could be suppressed for & 100 Myr (Johnson & Bromm 2007).”
Formation of z~6 Quasars from Hierarchical Galaxy Mergers (2006, background): “Johnson & Bromm (2007) suggest that such feedback would deplete the gas in the central region and would delay the BH accretion by up to 108 yr.”
Black hole formation in the early Universe (2013, background): “…that strong Lyman–Werner flux ≥103 in units of J21 is required to photodissociate H2 molecules in haloes with virial temperatures >104 K (Omukai 2001; Johnson & Bromm 2007; Dijkstra et al. 2008; Schleicher et al. 2010; Shang et al. 2010; Latif et al. 2011b, 2013a; Wolcott-Green, Haiman & Bryan…”
What drives the growth of black holes (2011, background): “Radiative feedback limits the possible accretion rates onto seed stellar-mass 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…”
Early Cosmological H II/He III Regions and Their Impact on Second-Generation Star Formation (2006, background): “The importance of HD cooling is further discussed in recent literature in a variety of contexts, such as in relic H ii regions and in supernova remnants of the first stars (Nagakura&Omukai 2005; Johnson & Bromm 2006, 2007; Yoshida 2006; Ripamonti 2007).”
Formation of supermassive black holes (2010, background): “Sub-grid physics prescriptions are normally adopted for the accretion rate and the radiative feedback (e.g., Pelupessy et al, 2007; Johnson and Bromm, 2007).”
Fluctuations in the high-redshift Lyman–Werner background: close halo pairs as the origin of supermassive black holes (2008, background): “…and mergers, starting from stellar–mass seed BHs left behind by the first generation of stars (e.g. Haiman & Loeb 2001; Haiman 2004; Yoo & Miralda-Escudé 2004; Bromley, Somerville & Fabian 2004; Shapiro 2005; Volonteri & Rees 2006; Li et al. 2007; Johnson & Bromm 2007; Tanaka & Haiman 2008).”
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).”
ACCRETION ONTO THE FIRST STELLAR-MASS BLACK HOLES (2007, background): “They influenced subsequent structure formation through their UV radiation heating the surrounding gas and initiating reionization (Whalen et al. 2004; Kitayama et al. 2004; Alvarez et al. 2006; Johnson & Bromm 2007; Abel et al. 2007; Yoshida et al. 2007; Wise & Abel 2007, 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.”
Formation of Supermassive Black Hole Seeds (2016, background): “The three dimensional numerical simulations studying the growth of stellar mass BHs show that feedback PASA (2016) doi:10.1017/pas.2016.xxx from a BH photo-evaporates the gas the in its hosting halo and consequently accretion onto a BH gets halted (Johnson & Bromm 2007; Alvarez et al. 2009).”