1. Direct Collapse Supermassive Black Holes from Relic Particle Decay
- Author
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Lu, Yifan, Picker, Zachary SC, and Kusenko, Alexander
- Subjects
Nuclear and Plasma Physics ,Particle and High Energy Physics ,Physical Sciences ,Mathematical Sciences ,Engineering ,General Physics ,Mathematical sciences ,Physical sciences - Abstract
We investigate the formation of high-redshift supermassive black holes (SMBHs) via the direct collapse of baryonic clouds, where the unwanted formation of molecular hydrogen is successfully suppressed by a Lyman-Werner (LW) photon background from relic particle decay. We improve on existing studies by dynamically simulating the collapse, accounting for the adiabatic contraction of the DM halo, as well as the in situ production of the LW photons within the cloud which reduce the impact of the cloud's shielding. We find a viable parameter space where the decay of either some of the dark matter or all of a subdominant decaying species successfully allows direct collapse of the cloud to a SMBH.
- Published
- 2024