Growth of Massive Black-Holes in FFB Galaxies at Cosmic Dawn

TL;DR

This paper proposes a merger-driven growth scenario for massive black holes in feedback-free starburst galaxies at cosmic dawn, explaining their rapid formation and high mass ratios observed at high redshifts.

Contribution

It introduces a novel model of black hole seed formation and growth via mergers within FFB galaxies, addressing the rapid emergence of supermassive black holes.

Findings

Black hole seeds form rapidly in star clusters within FFB galaxies.

Mergers of seed black holes can produce supermassive black holes by redshift 4-7.

The scenario explains observed high black hole-to-stellar mass ratios at high redshift.

Abstract

The scenario of feedback-free starbursts (FFB), which predicts excessively bright galaxies at cosmic dawn as observed using JWST, may provide a natural setting for black hole (BH) growth. This involves the formation of intermediate-mass seed BHs and their runaway mergers into super-massive BHs with high BH-to-stellar mass ratios and low AGN luminosities. We present a scenario of merger-driven BH growth in FFB galaxies and study its feasibility. BH seeds form within the building blocks of the FFB galaxies, namely, thousands of compact star clusters, each starbursting in a free-fall time of a few Myr before the onset of stellar and supernova feedback. The BH seeds form by rapid core collapse in the FFB clusters, in a few free-fall times, sped up by the migration of massive stars due to the young, broad stellar mass function and stimulated by a `gravo-gyro' instability due to internal cluster rotation and flattening. BHs of $10^4 M_\odot$ are expected in $10^6 M_\odot$ FFB clusters within sub-kpc galactic disks at $z \sim 10$. The BHs then migrate to the galaxy center by dynamical friction, hastened by the compact FFB stellar galactic disk configuration. Efficient mergers of the BH seeds will produce $10^{6-8} M_\odot$ BHs with a BH-to-stellar mass ratio $\sim 0.01$ by $z \sim 4-7$, as observed. The growth of the central BH by mergers can overcome the bottleneck introduced by gravitational wave recoils if the BHs inspiral within a relatively cold disk or if the escape velocity from the galaxy is boosted by a wet compaction event. Such events, common in massive galaxies at high redshifts, can also help by speeding up the inward BH migration and by providing central gas to assist with the final parsec problem. The cold disk version of the FFB scenario provides a feasible route for the formation of supermassive BHs.