Magnetic Effects Promote Supermassive Star Formation in Metal-enriched Atomic-cooling Halos

TL;DR

This study uses magnetohydrodynamical simulations to show that magnetic field amplification in metal-enriched atomic-cooling halos enhances protostar growth and influences conditions for supermassive star formation, differing from previous unmagnetized models.

Contribution

It demonstrates that magnetic field amplification occurs in metal-enriched halos and significantly impacts protostar evolution and supermassive star formation criteria.

Findings

Magnetic fields promote protostar coalescence and growth.

Mass accretion rates are lower in metal-enriched halos.

Magnetic effects alter the supermassive star formation conditions.

Abstract

Intermediate-mass black holes (with $\geq\!10^5\,M_\odot$) are promising candidates for the origin of supermassive black holes (with $\sim\!10^9\,M_\odot$) in the early universe (redshift $z\sim6$). Chon & Omukai (2020) firstly pointed out the direct collapse black hole (DCBH) formation in metal-enriched atomic-cooling halos (ACHs), which relaxes the DCBH formation criterion. On the other hand, Hirano et al. (2021) showed that the magnetic effects promote the DCBH formation in metal-free ACHs. We perform a set of magnetohydrodynamical simulations to investigate star formation in the magnetized ACHs with metallicities $Z/Z_\odot = 0$, $10^{-5}$, and $10^{-4}$. Our simulations show that the mass accretion rate onto the protostars becomes lower in metal-enriched ACHs than that of metal-free ACHs. However, many protostars form from gravitationally and thermally unstable metal-enriched gas clouds. Under such circumstances, the magnetic field rapidly increases as the magnetic field lines wind up due to the spin of protostars. The region with the amplified magnetic field expands outwards due to the orbital motion of protostars and the rotation of the accreting gas. The amplified magnetic field extracts the angular momentum from the accreting gas, promotes the coalescence of the low-mass protostars, and increases the mass growth rate of the primary protostar. We conclude that the magnetic field amplification is always realized in the metal-enriched ACHs regardless of the initial magnetic field strength, which affects the DCBH formation criterion. In addition, we find a qualitatively different trend from the previous unmagnetized simulations in that the mass growth rate is maximal for the extremely metal-poor ACHs with $Z/Z_\odot = 10^{-5}$.