Direct Collapse Black Hole Candidates from Decaying Dark Matter
arXiv:2509.25325 · doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2026/04/034
Abstract
Injecting 1-13.6 eV photons into the early universe can suppress the molecular hydrogen abundance and alter the star formation history dramatically enough to produce direct collapse black holes. These, in turn, could explain the recently observed population of puzzling high-redshift supermassive black holes that appear to require super-Eddington accretion. We show that axion dark matter decay in the intergalactic medium can account for this energy injection. We use a single zone model of the gas core and semi-analytically evolve its chemo-thermal properties to track the conditions for which the system becomes an atomic cooling halo-a necessary precursor for the production of heavy black hole seeds to explain the high-redshift black hole population. Windows of axions masses between 24.5-26.5 eV with photon couplings as low as /GeV may realize this atomic cooling halo condition. We highlight the significance of the band structure of molecular hydrogen on the effectiveness of this process and discuss estimates of the heavy seed population and prospects for testing this model.
30 pages + 3 appendices, 10 figures; v2: corrected typos (including missing line in Fig. 8), updated references; v3: minor revisions from referee (technical content and conclusions are unchanged), copy-editing revisions. Matches published version
References in corpus (101)
- A Universal Density Profile from Hierarchical Clustering
- Large scale bias and the peak background split
- An 800-million-solar-mass black hole in a significantly neutral Universe at redshift 7.5
- The Formation of the First Stars. I. The Primordial Star Forming Cloud
- How small were the first cosmological objects?
- Formation of Supermassive Black Holes by Direct Collapse in Pregalactic Halos
- Formation of the First Supermassive Black Holes
- Structure of Stationary Photodissociation Fronts
- New experimental approaches in the search for axion-like particles
- Experimental Searches for the Axion and Axion-like Particles
- The Assembly of the First Massive Black Holes
- The landscape of QCD axion models
- Simulations of Early Structure Formation: Primordial Gas Clouds
- Modelling Primordial Gas in Numerical Cosmology
- Accurate universal models for the mass accretion histories and concentrations of dark matter halos
- Supermassive black hole formation during the assembly of pre-galactic discs
- Relative velocity of dark matter and baryonic fluids and the formation of the first structures
- Collider Probes of Axion-Like Particles
- Probing the Universe with the Lyman-alpha Forest: I. Hydrodynamics of the Low Density IGM
- Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter
- The Formation and Fragmentation of Disks around Primordial Protostars
- Second-Generation Objects in the Universe: Radiative Cooling and Collapse of Halos with Virial Temperatures Above 10^4 Kelvin
- Simulations of Pregalactic Structure Formation with Radiative Feedback
- A White Paper on keV Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter
- The Radiative Feedback of the First Cosmological Objects
- Sterile neutrinos: the dark side of the light fermions
- Collapse of Primordial Gas Clouds and the Formation of Quasar Black Holes
- Massive black hole seeds from low angular momentum material
- Primordial Star Formation under Far-ultraviolet radiation
- The origins of massive black holes
- Can Supermassive Black Holes Form in Metal-Enriched High-Redshift Protogalaxies ?
- Dark matter and the first stars: a new phase of stellar evolution
- Photodissociation of H2 in Protogalaxies: Modeling Self-Shielding in 3D Simulations
- Formation of massive black holes in rapidly growing pre-galactic gas clouds
- Sterile neutrinos in cosmology
- Titans of the Early Universe: The Prato Statement on the Origin of the First Supermassive Black Holes
- The Evolution of Supermassive Population III Stars
- Feedback-regulated Super Massive Black Hole Seed Formation
- Resolving the Formation of Protogalaxies. I. Virialization
- The Dawn of Chemistry
- The critical radiation intensity for direct collapse black hole formation: dependence on the radiation spectral shape
- Primordial seeds of supermassive black holes
- Supermassive Black Holes from Ultra-Strongly Self-Interacting Dark Matter
- The Inhomogeneous Background of H2 Dissociating Radiation During Cosmic Reionization
- The Inhomogeneous Background of Hydrogen-Molecule Dissociating Radiation during Cosmic Reionization
- Molecular Hydrogen in Star-forming regions: implementation of its micro-physics in Cloudy
- The accretion history of dark matter halos I: The physical origin of the universal function
- Towards a complete treatment of the cosmological recombination problem
- Formation of massive protostars in atomic cooling haloes
- Formation of an embryonic supermassive star in the first galaxy
- The mass function of high redshift seed black holes
- The low-end of the black hole mass function at cosmic dawn
- Supermassive black hole formation by the cold accretion shocks in the first galaxies
- Cosmological Simulations of Early Blackhole Formation: Halo Mergers, Tidal Disruption, and the Conditions for Direct Collapse
- New constraints on direct collapse black hole formation in the early Universe
- Recombinations to the Rydberg States of Hydrogen and Their Effect During the Cosmological Recombination Epoch
- Cooling and Heating Functions of Photoionized Gas
- Seeding Supermassive Black Holes with Self-Interacting Dark Matter: A Unified Scenario with Baryons
- Spectral distortion constraints on photon injection from low-mass decaying particles
- H_2 Suppression with Shocking Inflows: Testing a Pathway for Supermassive Black Hole Formation
- Dark Matter Annihilation and Primordial Star Formation
- Strong constraints on decay and annihilation of dark matter from heating of gas-rich dwarf galaxies
- Cosmological production of H_2 before the formation of the first galaxies
- A No-Go Theorem for Direct Collapse Black Holes Without a Strong Ultraviolet Background
- Dark Stars: a new look at the First Stars in the Universe
- Supermassive Black Holes in the Early Universe
- The Formation of Very Massive Stars in Early Galaxies and Implications for Intermediate Mass Black Holes
- Beyond Jcrit: a critical curve for suppression of H2-cooling in protogalaxies
- TheHaloMod: An online calculator for the halo model
- Probing the Blue Axion with Cosmic Optical Background Anisotropies
- Assessing inflow rates in atomic cooling halos: implications for direct collapse black holes
- Direct collapse black hole formation via high-velocity collisions of protogalaxies
- The Formation of Supermassive Black Holes from Population III.1 Seeds. I. Cosmic Formation Histories and Clustering Properties
- Starbursts in low-mass haloes at Cosmic Dawn. I. The critical halo mass for star formation
- The Emergence of the First Star-free Atomic Cooling Haloes in the Universe
- Anisotropic cosmic optical background bound for decaying dark matter in light of the LORRI anomaly
- Direct collapse to supermassive black hole seeds: the critical conditions for suppression of cooling
- Massive Black Hole Seeds
- H2 self-shielding with non-LTE rovibrational populations: implications for cooling in protogalaxies
- A self-consistent semi-analytic model for Population III star formation in minihalos
- Fragmentation inside atomic cooling haloes exposed to Lyman-Werner radiation
- SMBH Seeds from Dissipative Dark Matter
- Sizes and Stellar Masses of the Little Red Dots Imply Immense Stellar Densities
- Massive black holes at high redshifts from superconducting cosmic strings
- ALP dark matter with non-periodic potentials: parametric resonance, halo formation and gravitational signatures
- Seeking dark matter with -ray attenuation
- Direct-collapse supermassive black holes from relic particle decay
- Direct-collapse black hole formation induced by internal radiation of host halos
- Novel bounds on decaying axionlike particle dark matter from the cosmic background
- Feeding plankton to whales: high-redshift supermassive black holes from tiny black hole explosions
- Supermassive black hole seeds from sub-keV dark matter
- A Spectroscopic Search for Optical Emission Lines from Dark Matter Decay
- Dark Matter Annihilation in the Circumgalactic Medium at High Redshifts
- Predicting the number density of heavy seed massive black holes due to an intense Lyman-Werner field
- A Heavy Seed Black Hole Mass Function at High Redshift -- Prospects for LISA
- Return of the Lepton Number: Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter Production and the Revival of the Shi-Fuller Mechanism
- Halo Mergers Enhance the Growth of Massive Black Hole Seeds
- Halo mass functions at high redshift
- The Effects of Dark Matter Annihilation and Dark Matter-Baryon Velocity Offsets at Cosmic Dawn
- Do We Know How to Model Reionization?
- Neutrino masses, matter-antimatter asymmetry, dark matter, and supermassive black hole formation explained with Majorons