Massive star clusters detected by JWST as natural birth places to form intermediate-mass black holes

Abstract

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected, through gravitational lensing, several young massive star clusters (YMCs), which are considered as relevant building blocks of high redshift galaxies. In this work, we show how a significant fraction of these YMCs could act as relevant birth places for intermediate-mass black holes. We first consider the formation of massive clusters and show that the population of YMCs is consistent with a steep mass-radius relation, which includes a relevant spread of roughly an order of magnitude. We pursue a comparison of this population with young star clusters in the local Universe and Milky Way globular clusters, including an analysis of the characteristic timescales. The YMCs show a wide spread over these properties, but include systems with both short relaxation times as well as relatively short collision timescales, implying they could go through efficient core collapse, which would lead to runaway collisions. We provide quantitative estimates of the sizes of the clusters that could efficiently form intermediate-mass black holes through a runaway collision-based channel, suggesting that these roughly correspond to the systems beyond the $1\sigma$ scatter in the mass-radius relation. This implies a fraction of ~16% of YMCs as candidates to form intermediate-mass black holes. We show that above a mass limit of ~6x10^6 M_sun, compact star clusters are likely to retain gas even in the presence of strong supernova feedback, altering the dynamics in the central core and providing the possibility to rapidly grow the central object both via gas dynamical friction and Bondi accretion. Finally, we consider the possibility of a gas-dominated regime, in which strong gravitational torques may inhibit star cluster formation and instead directly form a high-mass black holes, as suggested to have occurred in the infinity galaxy.

13 pages, 5 figures, submitted to A&A

References in corpus (74)

• The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) -- Overview
• Mass loss from hot massive stars
• A population of red candidate massive galaxies ~600 Myr after the Big Bang
• Protostar Formation in the Early Universe
• Very massive stars, pair-instability supernovae and intermediate-mass black holes with the SEVN code
• The empirical metallicity dependence of the mass-loss rate of O- and early B-type stars
• Fragmentation of star-forming clouds enriched with the first dust
• Mass loss from late-type WN stars and its Z-dependence: very massive stars approaching the Eddington limit
• Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS) with The Hubble Space Telescope. I. Survey Description
• Resolving the Formation of Protogalaxies. II. Central Gravitational Collapse
• The life cycle of star cluster in a tidal field
• The metallicity of the most distant quasars
• Constraining the high redshift formation of black hole seeds in nuclear star clusters with gas inflows
• JWST/NIRCam Probes Young Star Clusters in the Reionization Era Sunrise Arc
• Intermediate Mass Black Hole Formation in compact Young Massive Star Clusters
• The low-end of the black hole mass function at cosmic dawn
• High star cluster formation efficiency in the strongly lensed Sunburst Lyman-continuum galaxy at z=2.37
• A dormant, overmassive black hole in the early Universe
• Supermassive Star Formation via Super Competitive Accretion in Slightly Metal-enriched Clouds
• Radii of Young Star Clusters in Nearby Galaxies
• Does disk fragmentation prevent the formation of supermassive stars in protogalaxies?
• Revealing the Accretion Physics of Supermassive Black Holes at Redshift z~7 with Chandra and Infrared Observations
• Preparing the next gravitational million-body simulations: Evolution of single and binary stars in Nbody6++GPU, MOCCA and McLuster
• Light, medium-weight or heavy? The nature of the first supermassive black hole seeds
• Early results from GLASS-JWST. VII: evidence for lensed, gravitationally bound proto-globular clusters at z=4 in the Hubble Frontier Field A2744
• Generation of massive stellar black holes by rapid gas accretion in primordial dense clusters
• Towards a Comprehensive Fueling-Controlled Theory on the Growth of Massive Black Holes and Host Spheroids
• Multi-flavour SMBH seeding and evolution in cosmological environments
• Formation of supermassive black hole seeds in nuclear star clusters via gas accretion and runaway collisions
• Unveiling early black hole growth with multi-frequency gravitational wave observations
• Formation of supermassive stars in the first star clusters
• Simulations predict intermediate-mass black hole formation in globular clusters
• Origin of supermassive black holes in massive metal-poor protoclusters
• A prescription and fast code for the long-term evolution of star clusters - III. Unequal masses and stellar evolution
• SIRIUS Project. III. Star-by-star simulations of star cluster formation using a direct N-body integrator with stellar feedback
• Mass Evaporation Rate of Globular Clusters in a Strong Tidal Field
• MOCCA SURVEY Database I: Binary Black Hole Mergers from Globular Clusters with Intermediate Mass Black Holes
• Formation of super-massive black holes in galactic nuclei I: delivering seed intermediate-mass black holes in massive stellar clusters
• The mass-loss rates of star clusters with stellar-mass black holes: implications for the globular cluster mass function
• Massive star cluster formation I. High star formation efficiency while resolving feedback of individual stars
• Stellar collisions in flattened and rotating Pop. III star clusters
• Density modulated star formation efficiency: implications for the observed abundance of ultra-violet luminous galaxies at z>10
• Sizes and Stellar Masses of the Little Red Dots Imply Immense Stellar Densities
• Global instability by runaway collisions in nuclear stellar clusters: Numerical tests of a route for massive black hole formation
• The effects of a background potential in star cluster evolution: a delay in the relaxation time-scale and runaway collision processes
• The impact of metallicity-dependent mass loss versus dynamical heating on the early evolution of star clusters
• Observational Support for Massive Black Hole Formation Driven by Runaway Stellar Collisions in Galactic Nuclei
• Effect of mass loss due to stellar winds on the formation of supermassive black hole seeds in dense nuclear star clusters
• Impact of initial mass functions on the dynamical channel of gravitational wave sources
• Formation of supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei II: retention and growth of seed intermediate-mass black holes
• Magnetic fields catalyze massive black hole formation and growth
• SIEGE III: The formation of dense stellar clusters in sub-parsec resolution cosmological simulations with individual star feedback
• Little Red Dots Are Nurseries of Massive Black Holes
• Rapid formation of a very massive star >50000 $M_{\odot }$ and subsequently an IMBH from runaway collisions. Direct N-body and Monte Carlo simulations of dense star clusters
• Efficiency of black hole formation via collisions in stellar systems: An analysis of data from simulations and observations
• Testing Feedback from Star Clusters in Simulations of the Milky Way Formation
• Supermassive black hole formation via collisions in black hole clusters
• A rapid channel for the collisional formation and gravitational wave driven mergers of supermassive black hole seeds at high redshift
• Dynamics of a Superdense Cluster of Black Holes and the Formation of the Galactic SMBH
• Role of magnetic fields in the formation of direct collapse black holes
• Massive black hole formation in Population III star clusters
• Efficient black hole seed formation in low metallicity and dense stellar clusters with implications for JWST sources
• The physical origin of super-competitive accretion during the formation of the first supermassive black holes
• Formation of Pop II star clusters in the aftermath of a pair instability supernova
• JWST spectroscopic confirmation of the Cosmic Gems arc at z=9.625 -- Insights into the small scale structure of a post-burst system
• The z = 9.625 Cosmic Gems Galaxy was a "Compact Blue Monster" Propelled by Massive Star Clusters
• Mergers all the way down: stellar collisions and kinematics of a dense hierarchically forming massive star cluster in a dwarf starburst
• Collision-induced mass loss and mass gain on an extremely massive star. An analytical approach and a static proto-globular cluster test-case
• Do fragmentation and accretion affect the stellar Initial Mass Function?
• Formation of supermassive stars in the first stellar clusters: Dependence on the gas temperature
• Magnetic braking during direct collapse black hole formation
• A z ~ 0.4 Galaxy Reflecting the high-redshift Little Red Dots: An Extended Starburst with an Overmassive Black Hole
• Gravitational collapse at low to moderate Mach numbers: The relationship between star formation efficiency and the fraction of mass in the massive object
• The properties of supermassive stars in galaxy merger driven direct collapse I: models without rotation