Impact of gas spin and Lyman–Werner flux on black hole seed formation in cosmological simulations: implications for direct collapse
<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title> <jats:p>Direct collapse black holes (BHs) are promising candidates for producing massive z ≳ 6 quasars, but their formation requires fine-tuned conditions. In this work, we use cosmological zoom simulations to study systematically t...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press (OUP)
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/142393 |
| _version_ | 1826215324056289280 |
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| author | Bhowmick, Aklant K Blecha, Laura Torrey, Paul Kelley, Luke Zoltan Vogelsberger, Mark Nelson, Dylan Weinberger, Rainer Hernquist, Lars |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics Bhowmick, Aklant K Blecha, Laura Torrey, Paul Kelley, Luke Zoltan Vogelsberger, Mark Nelson, Dylan Weinberger, Rainer Hernquist, Lars |
| author_sort | Bhowmick, Aklant K |
| collection | MIT |
| description | <jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title>
<jats:p>Direct collapse black holes (BHs) are promising candidates for producing massive z ≳ 6 quasars, but their formation requires fine-tuned conditions. In this work, we use cosmological zoom simulations to study systematically the impact of requiring: (1) low gas angular momentum (spin), and (2) a minimum incident Lyman–Werner (LW) flux in order to form BH seeds. We probe the formation of seeds (with initial masses of $M_{\rm seed} \sim 10^4\!-\!10^6\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }\, h^{-1})$ in haloes with a total mass &gt;3000 × Mseed and a dense, metal-poor gas mass &gt;5 × Mseed. Within this framework, we find that the seed-forming haloes have a prior history of star formation and metal enrichment, but they also contain pockets of dense, metal-poor gas. When seeding is further restricted to haloes with low gas spins, the number of seeds formed is suppressed by factors of ∼6 compared to the baseline model, regardless of the seed mass. Seed formation is much more strongly impacted if the dense, metal-poor gas is required to have a critical LW flux (Jcrit). Even for Jcrit values as low as 50J21, no $8\times 10^{5}~\mathrm{M}_{\odot }\, h^{-1}$ seeds are formed. While lower mass ($1.25\times 10^{4},1\times 10^{5}~\mathrm{M}_{\odot }\, h^{-1}$) seeds do form, they are strongly suppressed (by factors of ∼10–100) compared to the baseline model at gas mass resolutions of $\sim 10^4~\mathrm{M}_{\odot }\, h^{-1}$ (with even stronger suppression at higher resolutions). As a result, BH merger rates are also similarly suppressed. Since early BH growth is dominated by mergers in our models, none of the seeds are able to grow to the supermassive regime ($\gtrsim 10^6~\mathrm{M}_{\odot }\, h^{-1}$) by z = 7. Our results hint that producing the bulk of the z ≳ 6 supermassive BH population may require alternate seeding scenarios that do not depend on the LW flux, early BH growth dominated by rapid or super-Eddington accretion, or a combination of these possibilities.</jats:p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:23:54Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/142393 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:23:54Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1423932023-01-17T20:32:04Z Impact of gas spin and Lyman–Werner flux on black hole seed formation in cosmological simulations: implications for direct collapse Bhowmick, Aklant K Blecha, Laura Torrey, Paul Kelley, Luke Zoltan Vogelsberger, Mark Nelson, Dylan Weinberger, Rainer Hernquist, Lars Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research <jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title> <jats:p>Direct collapse black holes (BHs) are promising candidates for producing massive z ≳ 6 quasars, but their formation requires fine-tuned conditions. In this work, we use cosmological zoom simulations to study systematically the impact of requiring: (1) low gas angular momentum (spin), and (2) a minimum incident Lyman–Werner (LW) flux in order to form BH seeds. We probe the formation of seeds (with initial masses of $M_{\rm seed} \sim 10^4\!-\!10^6\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }\, h^{-1})$ in haloes with a total mass &gt;3000 × Mseed and a dense, metal-poor gas mass &gt;5 × Mseed. Within this framework, we find that the seed-forming haloes have a prior history of star formation and metal enrichment, but they also contain pockets of dense, metal-poor gas. When seeding is further restricted to haloes with low gas spins, the number of seeds formed is suppressed by factors of ∼6 compared to the baseline model, regardless of the seed mass. Seed formation is much more strongly impacted if the dense, metal-poor gas is required to have a critical LW flux (Jcrit). Even for Jcrit values as low as 50J21, no $8\times 10^{5}~\mathrm{M}_{\odot }\, h^{-1}$ seeds are formed. While lower mass ($1.25\times 10^{4},1\times 10^{5}~\mathrm{M}_{\odot }\, h^{-1}$) seeds do form, they are strongly suppressed (by factors of ∼10–100) compared to the baseline model at gas mass resolutions of $\sim 10^4~\mathrm{M}_{\odot }\, h^{-1}$ (with even stronger suppression at higher resolutions). As a result, BH merger rates are also similarly suppressed. Since early BH growth is dominated by mergers in our models, none of the seeds are able to grow to the supermassive regime ($\gtrsim 10^6~\mathrm{M}_{\odot }\, h^{-1}$) by z = 7. Our results hint that producing the bulk of the z ≳ 6 supermassive BH population may require alternate seeding scenarios that do not depend on the LW flux, early BH growth dominated by rapid or super-Eddington accretion, or a combination of these possibilities.</jats:p> 2022-05-06T15:58:23Z 2022-05-06T15:58:23Z 2021 2022-05-06T15:48:41Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/142393 Bhowmick, Aklant K, Blecha, Laura, Torrey, Paul, Kelley, Luke Zoltan, Vogelsberger, Mark et al. 2021. "Impact of gas spin and Lyman–Werner flux on black hole seed formation in cosmological simulations: implications for direct collapse." Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 510 (1). en 10.1093/MNRAS/STAB3439 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Oxford University Press (OUP) arXiv |
| spellingShingle | Bhowmick, Aklant K Blecha, Laura Torrey, Paul Kelley, Luke Zoltan Vogelsberger, Mark Nelson, Dylan Weinberger, Rainer Hernquist, Lars Impact of gas spin and Lyman–Werner flux on black hole seed formation in cosmological simulations: implications for direct collapse |
| title | Impact of gas spin and Lyman–Werner flux on black hole seed formation in cosmological simulations: implications for direct collapse |
| title_full | Impact of gas spin and Lyman–Werner flux on black hole seed formation in cosmological simulations: implications for direct collapse |
| title_fullStr | Impact of gas spin and Lyman–Werner flux on black hole seed formation in cosmological simulations: implications for direct collapse |
| title_full_unstemmed | Impact of gas spin and Lyman–Werner flux on black hole seed formation in cosmological simulations: implications for direct collapse |
| title_short | Impact of gas spin and Lyman–Werner flux on black hole seed formation in cosmological simulations: implications for direct collapse |
| title_sort | impact of gas spin and lyman werner flux on black hole seed formation in cosmological simulations implications for direct collapse |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/142393 |
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