HLRB Project h1221
Formation of the First Supermassive Black Holes in the Earl/ Universe
Regional Observatory, Heidelberg
Proposing Institution
Regional Observatory, Heidelberg
Project Manager
Dominik Schleicher
Königstuhl 12
69117 Heidelberg
Abstract
The formation of the first supermassive black holes is still an unresolved problem in modern cosmology. Direct collapse models seem especially attractive, since they can provide seed black holes of approx. 10^5 solar masses, which can easily grow to the supermassive black holes observed at z=6. Only a few simulations have been performed on this topic, as for instance by Bromm and Loeb 2003, based on an SPH-code. In a first step, we have reinvestigated their simulations to check the reliability of their results. We found some differences, which we want to confirm now with higher resolution. It seems of special importance that molecular hydrogen formation did not trigger fragmentation in our simulation, so it need not necessarily be suppressed for the formation of massive objects. However, we plan to confirm these results with higher resolution and also explore the effects of deuterium chemistry and photodissociating background radiation. Also, we plan to study the formation of massive disks which may form if there is sufficient angular momentum. An alternative to the formation of a disk could be the formation of a binary system of massive clumps, as found by Bromm and Loeb, which would lead to a burst of gravitational radiation which could be detected by LISA.
