Dominik Schleicher - July 6, 2017

Black hole formation by direct collapse - successes and problems

The direct collapse is frequently considered as a promising scenario for the
formation of 10^5 solar mass black holes, which could act as the first massive
seeds to form the observed supermassive black holes between redshifts 6-7. I
will first demonstrate how such seeds can actually form in the presence of a
primordial gas exposed to a strong radiation background, leading to high Jeans
masses. I will subsequently discuss deviations from such ideal conditions and
try to assess the maximum deviations that can be allowed for to still form
rather massive objects. I will finally speculate about possible extensions of
this scenario, in which a massive black hole could form through the evolution of
a dense stellar cluster.