Force-feeding Supermassive Black Holes with Dissipative Dark Matter

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel mechanism where dissipative dark matter facilitates rapid growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe, explaining their existence at high redshifts.

Contribution

It introduces a new model where dissipative dark matter enables efficient black hole growth, addressing limitations of baryonic accretion in early universe scenarios.

Findings

Dark matter halos can collapse via dissipative cooling.

Dissipative dark matter allows for high accretion rates onto black holes.

This mechanism explains the presence of supermassive black holes at high redshifts.

Abstract

Supermassive black holes with masses $\gtrsim 10^9\,M_\odot$ have been discovered by JWST at high redshifts ($z\sim 7$). It is difficult to explain such objects as the result of accretive growth of stellar-mass seeds, as the rate at which baryons can be fed to the black hole is limited by the radiation pressure of the infalling matter. In this paper, we propose a new mechanism to create the early progenitors: the collapse of small dark matter halos through a dissipative cooling mechanism in the dark sector. These small black holes can then be efficiently fed with additional dissipative dark matter due to the comparatively weak interactions between the dark radiation and dark matter, which results in a very short Eddington time and high accretion rates.