Observational signatures of massive black hole formation in the early universe
arXiv:1809.03526 · doi:10.1038/s41550-018-0569-y
Abstract
Space telescope observations of massive black holes during their formation may be key to understanding the origin of supermassive black holes and high-redshift quasars. To create diagnostics for their detection and confirmation, we study a simulation of a nascent massive, so-called direct-collapse, black hole that induces a wave of nearby massive metal-free star formation, unique to this seeding scenario and to very high redshifts. Here we describe a series of distinct colors and emission line strengths, dependent on the relative strength of star formation and black hole accretion. We predict that the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope might be able to detect and distinguish a young galaxy that hosts a direct-collapse black hole in this configuration at redshift 15 with as little as a 20,000-second total exposure time across four filters, critical for constraining supermassive black hole seeding mechanisms and early growth rates. We also find that a massive seed black hole produces strong, H-dissociating Lyman-Werner radiation.
arXiv commentAs submitted on May 30th, 2018. Published in Nature Astronomy on September 10th, 2018
References in corpus (53)
- Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
- Hot Accretion Flows Around Black Holes
- A luminous quasar at a redshift of z = 7.085
- Constraining the Evolution of the Ionizing Background and the Epoch of Reionization with z ~ 6 Quasars II: A Sample of 19 Quasars
- Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Power Spectra and WMAP-Derived Parameters
- An absorption profile centred at 78 megahertz in the sky-averaged spectrum
- An 800-million-solar-mass black hole in a significantly neutral Universe at redshift 7.5
- On the properties of massive Population III stars and metal-free stellar populations
- Enzo: An Adaptive Mesh Refinement Code for Astrophysics
- Formation of Supermassive Black Holes by Direct Collapse in Pregalactic Halos
- Formation of the First Supermassive Black Holes
- An ultra-luminous quasar with a twelve-billion-solar-mass black hole at redshift 6.30
- Nucleosynthesis Yields of Core-Collapse Supernovae and Hypernovae, and Galactic Chemical Evolution
- Modelling Primordial Gas in Numerical Cosmology
- A Remarkably Luminous Galaxy at z=11.1 Measured with Hubble Space Telescope Grism Spectroscopy
- The Formation of the First Low-Mass Stars From Gas With Low Carbon and Oxygen Abundances
- Diagnostics of irradiated gas in galaxy nuclei. I: A Far-ultraviolet and X-ray dominated region code
- Collapse of Primordial Gas Clouds and the Formation of Quasar Black Holes
- A Review of Bondi--Hoyle--Lyttleton Accretion
- Radiation Backgrounds at Cosmic Dawn: X-Rays from Compact Binaries
- The spectral evolution of the first galaxies. I. James Webb Space Telescope detection limits and color criteria for population III galaxies
- Primordial Star Formation under Far-ultraviolet radiation
- The impact of nebular emission on the ages of z~6 galaxies
- Fluctuations in the High-Redshift Lyman-Werner Background: Close Halo Pairs as the Origin of Supermassive Black Holes
- Population III star formation in a Lambda CDM universe, I: The effect of formation redshift and environment on protostellar accretion rate
- Population III star formation in a Lambda CDM universe, II: Effects of a photodissociating background
- The Evolution of Normal Galaxy X-ray Emission Through Cosmic History: Constraints from the 6 Ms Chandra Deep Field-South
- HYPERION: An open-source parallelized three-dimensional dust continuum radiative transfer code
- C^2-Ray: A new method for photon-conserving transport of ionizing radiation
- Galaxy Properties and UV Escape Fractions During Epoch of Reionization: Results from the Renaissance Simulations
- Enzo+Moray: Radiation Hydrodynamics Adaptive Mesh Refinement Simulations with Adaptive Ray Tracing
- Feedback from Galaxy Formation: Production and Photodissociation of Primordial Molecular Hydrogen
- The Birth of a Galaxy. II. The Role of Radiation Pressure
- Suppression of H_2 Cooling in the Ultraviolet Background
- The HII Region of a Primordial Star
- Feedback-regulated Super Massive Black Hole Seed Formation
- Effects of a Soft X-ray Background on Structure Formation at High Redshift
- Pregalactic Black Hole Formation with an Atomic Hydrogen Equation of State
- Unveiling the first black holes with JWST: multi-wavelength spectral predictions
- Formation of massive protostars in atomic cooling haloes
- Direct collapse black hole formation from synchronized pairs of atomic cooling halos
- Unravelling obese black holes in the first galaxies
- A survey of luminous high-redshift quasars with SDSS and WISE. I. target selection and optical spectroscopy
- Cosmological Simulations of Early Blackhole Formation: Halo Mergers, Tidal Disruption, and the Conditions for Direct Collapse
- Accretion Disk Spectra of the Ultra-luminous X-ray Sources in Nearby Spiral Galaxies and Galactic Superluminal Jet Sources
- Galaxy Formation with Self-consistently Modeled Stars and Massive Black Holes. I: Feedback-regulated Star Formation and Black Hole Growth
- First Identification of Direct Collapse Black Hole Candidates in the Early Universe in CANDELS/GOODS-S
- Probing high-redshift quasars with ALMA. I. Expected observables and potential number of sources
- First Light: exploring the Spectra of High-Redshift Galaxies in the Renaissance Simulations
- Songlines from Direct Collapse Seed Black Holes: Effects of X-rays on Black Hole Growth and Stellar Populations
- Black hole formation and growth with non-Gaussian primordial density perturbations
- The Response of Metal Rich Gas to X-Ray Irradiation from a Massive Black Hole at High Redshift: Proof of Concept
- First Light II: Emission Line Extinction, Population III Stars, and X-ray Binaries
Cited by in corpus (20)
- The Assembly of the First Massive Black Holes
- Diagnostics for PopIII galaxies and Direct Collapse Black Holes in the early universe
- Supermassive Black Holes in the Early Universe
- Seeking the growth of the first black hole seeds with JWST
- The Age of Discovery with the James Webb: Excavating the Spectral Signatures of the First Massive Black Holes
- Modeling Supermassive Primordial Stars with MESA
- On the Evolution of Supermassive Primordial Stars in Cosmological Flows
- The Collapse of Atomically-Cooled Primordial Haloes. I. High Lyman-Werner Backgrounds
- Finding Direct-Collapse Black Holes at Birth
- The seeds of supermassive black holes and the role of local radiation and metal spreading
- High-redshift Galaxy Formation with Self-consistently Modeled Stars and Massive Black Holes: Stellar Feedback and Quasar Growth
- Radio Power from Direct-Collapse Black Holes
- Induced metal-free star formation around a massive black hole seed
- An empirical approach to selecting the first growing black hole seeds with JWST/NIRCam
- Submillimeter signatures from growing supermassive black holes before reionization
- Blue galaxies: modelling nebular He II emission in high redshift galaxies
- Astrophysics with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
- Accelerated growth of seed black holes by dust in the early universe
- Supermassive Dark Stars and their remnants as a possible solution to three recent cosmic dawn puzzles
- Finding lensed direct-collapse black holes and supermassive primordial stars