Formation of supermassive black holes by direct collapse in pre-galactic haloes

Formation of Supermassive Black Holes by Direct Collapse in Pregalactic Halos

We describe a mechanism by which supermassive black holes can form directly in the nuclei of protogalaxies, without the need for “seed” black holes left over from early star formation. Self-gravitating gas in dark matter halos can lose angular momentum rapidly via runaway, global dynamical instabilities, the so-called “bars within bars” mechanism. This leads to the rapid buildup of a dense, sel...

Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei

We discuss the link between the observations of distant quasars and those of massive dark objects in the cores of many local galaxies. We show how the formation of early black holes gives rise to the luminosity function of high z quasars, while it imprints into their dark local relics a related shape of the mass-dispersion correlation. We propose that in its lower section the correlation slope ...

Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei

We review the motivation and search for supermassive black holes (BHs) in galaxies. Energetic nuclear activity provides indirect but compelling evidence for BH engines. Ground-based dynamical searches for central dark objects are reviewed in Kormendy & Richstone (1995, ARA&A, 33, 581). Here we provide an update of results from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). This has greatly accelerated the d...

Supermassive Black Holes in Active Galactic Nuclei

Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Nuclei1