MESA-QUEST: Modeling Quasi-Stars in MESA

2025/07/16 by Campbell, Claire B., Santarelli, Andrew D., Caplan, Matthew E. · 3 citations
#FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2507.12651

Abstract

Supermassive black hole formation remains an unsolved problem. Quasi-stars have been suggested as a viable heavy-seeding mechanism. In this work, we implement methods for modeling quasi-stars previously used with the Cambridge STARS code into the 1D stellar evolution code MESA. The computational capabilities of MESA allow for more detailed simulations of quasi-star evolution due to its modularity and the ease of implementing of new physical processes and controls. Our implementation, the MESA Quasi-star Evolutionary Simulation Toolkit (MESA-QUEST), is available in a publicly accessible repository.

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• The Growth of the Central Black Holes in Quasi-stars
• Evolutionary Tracks and Spectral Properties of Quasi-stars and Their Correlation with Little Red Dots
• MESA-QUEST: Tracing the formation of direct collapse black hole seeds via quasi-stars

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