Finding Direct-Collapse Black Holes at Birth

Abstract

Direct-collapse black holes (DCBHs) are currently one of the leading contenders for the origins of the first quasars in the universe, over 300 of which have now been found at $z>$ 6. But the birth of a DCBH in an atomically-cooling halo does not by itself guarantee it will become a quasar by $z\sim$ 7, the halo must also be located in cold accretion flows or later merge with a series of other gas-rich halos capable of fueling the BH's rapid growth. Here, we present near infrared luminosities for DCBHs born in cold accretion flows in which they are destined to grow to 10${}^9$ M${}_{\odot }$ by $z\sim$ 7. Our observables, which are derived from cosmological simulations with radiation hydrodynamics with Enzo, reveal that DCBHs could be found by the James Webb Space Telescope at $z\lesssim$ 20 and strongly-lensed DCBHs might be found in future wide-field surveys by Euclid and the Wide-Field Infrared Space Telescope at $z\lesssim$ 15.

5 pages, 2 figures, accepted by ApJL

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Diagnostics for PopIII galaxies and Direct Collapse Black Holes in the early universe
• The Active Fraction of Massive Black Holes in Dwarf Galaxies
• Inception of a first quasar at cosmic dawn
• Conditions for direct black hole seed collapse near a radio-loud quasar 1 Gyr after the Big Bang