Turbulent Cold Flows Gave Birth to the First Quasars

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the first quasars formed naturally from cold, turbulent gas flows in early universe halos, creating massive black hole seeds without requiring special conditions, thus explaining their rapid emergence.

Contribution

It reveals a robust mechanism where cold flows induce turbulence and collapse, forming massive black hole seeds in primordial halos, clarifying quasar formation without exotic assumptions.

Findings

Massive black hole seeds of 31,000-40,000 M$_{ ext{⊙}}$ formed via cold flow-induced collapse.

Cold flows generate turbulence that prevents star formation until a critical mass triggers collapse.

First quasars emerged naturally from structure formation in cold dark matter cosmologies.

Abstract

How quasars powered by supermassive black holes (SMBHs) formed less than a billion years after the Big Bang is still one of the outstanding problems in astrophysics 20 years after their discovery$^{1-4}$. Cosmological simulations suggest that rare cold flows converging on primordial haloes in low-shear environments could have created these quasars if they were 10$^4$ - 10$^5$ M$_{\odot}$ at birth but could not resolve their formation$^{5-8}$. Semianalytical studies of the progenitor halo of a primordial quasar found that it favours the formation of such seeds but could not verify if one actually appeared$^9$. Here we show that a halo at the rare convergence of strong, cold accretion flows creates massive BH seeds without the need for UV backgrounds, supersonic streaming motions, or even atomic cooling. Cold flows drive violent, supersonic turbulence in the halo that prevents star formation until it reaches a mass that triggers sudden, catastrophic baryon collapse that forms 31,000 and 40,000 M$_{\odot}$ stars. This simple, robust process ensures that haloes capable of forming quasars by z $>$ 6 produce massive seeds. The first quasars were thus a natural consequence of structure formation in cold dark matter cosmologies, not exotic, finely-tuned environments as previously thought$^{10-14}$.