Gravothermal Collapse of Self-Interacting Dark Matter Halos and the Origin of Massive Black Holes

Shmuel Balberg; Stuart L. Shapiro

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.101301

Gravothermal Collapse of Self-Interacting Dark Matter Halos and the Origin of Massive Black Holes

Shmuel Balberg and Stuart L. Shapiro

Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 101301 – Published 22 February 2002

Abstract

Black hole formation is an inevitable consequence of relativistic core collapse following the gravothermal catastrophe in self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) halos. Very massive SIDM halos form supermassive black holes (SMBHs) $≳ 10^{6} M_{⊙}$ directly. Smaller halos believed to form by redshift $z = 5$ produce seed black holes of $(10^{2} - 10^{3}) M_{⊙}$ which can merge and/or accrete to reach the observational SMBH range. This scenario for SMBH formation requires no baryons, no prior star formation, and no other black hole seed mechanism.

Received 29 October 2001

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.101301

Authors & Affiliations

Shmuel Balberg^* and Stuart L. Shapiro^†

Physics Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1110 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801

^*Also at Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel.
^†Also at Department of Astronomy and NCSA, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801.