BNearly a billion years after the Big Bang, the universe’s first quasar – the supermassive black hole at the center of a newly formed galaxy – erupted. But how could objects as large as one billion solar masses appear in such a short time – from an astronomical point of view?
An international team of researchers has found the answer to this question with the help of computer simulations: a cold, turbulent stream of gas condenses to form the first black hole with a mass of ten to one hundred thousand solar masses. Scientists write that these objects then act as “seeds” for the formation of supermassive black holes In the magazine “Nature”.
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In today’s world, almost every galaxy has a massive black hole at its center with a mass millions to billions of times the mass of our Sun. At first, astronomers believed that these supermassive black holes would increase more or less evenly throughout cosmic history. However, this idea had to be corrected when many quasars were discovered in the early universe. They are also supermassive black holes where matter flows and heats up in the process – which is why quasars shine brighter than the galaxy at their center.
“Cosmic simulations have shown that these quasars could have formed through cold gas flows,” explained Mohammed Latif of the University of the United Arab Emirates and colleagues from Austria, Britain and Canada. “But the prerequisite for this is that black holes containing ten to one hundred thousand solar masses do exist. However, so far, there is no conclusive explanation for its formation.”
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Although unusual scenarios could lead to the formation of these supermassive black hole “seeds” – they rarely explain the frequency of quasars in the young universe.
Latif and his colleagues have now successfully used high-resolution computer simulations to find an explanation for the formation of the first black holes. As scientists report, the influx of cold gas into galaxies that formed in the young universe causes severe turbulence – this turbulence prevents stars from forming from gas in the normal way.
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Only when the accumulated mass of cold gas increases to 30,000 to 40,000 solar masses, the dense gas cloud collapses under the influence of its own gravity and forms a supermassive black hole.
According to Latif and colleagues, this simple and powerful process ensures that wherever there is enough gas to form a quasar, a “seed” can form initially. This process also occurs frequently enough to account for the number of quasars. “The first quasars are a natural consequence of the formation of structures in the early universe, and do not require well-tuned exotic environments, as previously thought,” the researchers said.
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