Muhammad Latif - September 2, 2016

Formation and growth of supermassive black holes at z > 6

Observations of quasars at z>6 suggest the presence of supermassive black holes (SMBHs)
of a few billion solar masses. The formation of such objects within a few hundred
million years after the Big Bang presents a challenge for our understanding of early
structure formation. I will discuss various black hole formation mechanisms and
particularly focus on the direct collapse model which is emerged as the most promising
way to assemble high redshift quasars. In this talk, I will discuss what are the
typical masses of direct collapse black holes (DCBHs)? How abundant are they? I will
show how realistic conditions influence the number density of DCBHs at z=6 and make
their sites rare. I will also present ideas both from semi-analytical models and
numerical simulations which may help in boosting the abundance of massive black hole
seeds. Finally, I will show our recent results on the growth of BHs within the first
billion years and will discuss how to observationally constrain the BH seed formation
models with present and future missions.