HMC Physics Colloquium
Tuesdays at 16:30 in Shanahan Center for Teaching and Learning, Room B460
Christine Corbett Moran
Caltech
Supermassive Black Hole Formation
April 3, 2018
Supermassive black holes are in place by the first billion years of the universe's existence. Several promising channels have be proposed for their formation, but forming supermassive black holes in the requisite time-frame remains a theoretical puzzle. One promising channel is that of direct collapse, in which a cloud of gas collapses to a massive seed black hole that then grows to supermassive size via accretion. In this talk I will give an overview of potential supermassive black hole formation channels and outline a suite of 3D hydrodynamical simulations probing conditions conducive to formation of a massive seed black hole via direct collapse.