Gravothermal Collapse of Self-Interacting Dark Matter Halos and the Origin of Massive Black Holes

2001/11/30 by Shmuel Balberg, Stuart L. Shapiro · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph #gr-qc

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.88.101301

published as Phys.Rev.Lett. 88 (2002) 101301 · 4 pages, RevTeX. Very minor changes, shortened to comply with PRL requirements. Figures 2 and 3 corrected from v2

openalex publication_date 2002/02/22 · arxiv created 2002/03/12 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Black hole formation is an inevitable consequence of relativistic core collapse following the gravothermal catastrophe in self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) halos. Very massive SIDM halos form supermassive black holes (SMBHs) > or about 10(6)M(middle dot in circle) directly. Smaller halos believed to form by redshift z = 5 produce seed black holes of (10(2)-10(3))M(middle dot in circle) which can merge and/or accrete to reach the observational SMBH range. This scenario for SMBH formation requires no baryons, no prior star formation, and no other black hole seed mechanism.

Citations

• The Demography of Massive Dark Objects in Galaxy Centers
• A Relationship between Nuclear Black Hole Mass and Galaxy Velocity Dispersion

Cited by

• Formation and evolution of self-interacting dark matter haloes
• Gravothermal phase transition, black holes and space dimensionality
• Growth of Black Holes and Their Host Spheroids in (Sub)mm-loud High-Redshift QSOs