Dark Recipe for the First Giants: From Population III Stars to Early Supermassive Black Holes via Dark Matter Capture

TL;DR

This paper proposes a dark matter-induced mechanism for early supermassive black hole formation, explaining high-redshift SMBHs observed by JWST through dark matter accumulation in Population III stars, with testable predictions for future experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scenario where dark matter interactions trigger early collapse of Pop III stars into SMBH seeds, addressing high-redshift SMBH formation challenges.

Findings

Dark matter interactions can induce Pop III star collapse into SMBH seeds.

Parameter space identified that explains observed high-redshift SMBHs.

Predicted gravitational wave signatures detectable by LISA and PTA.

Abstract

The presence of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at high redshifts ($z>5$), as revealed by James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), challenges standard black hole (BH) formation scenarios. We propose a mechanism in which non-annihilating dark matter (DM) with non-gravitational interactions with the Standard Model (SM) particles accumulates inside Population III (Pop III) stars, inducing their premature collapse into BH seeds having the same mass as the parent star. Owing to their early formation, these seeds can accrete for longer periods and grow into the SMBHs observed at early cosmic times. Focusing on spin-dependent (SD) DM-proton interactions, we identify regions of parameter space that account for the observed high-redshift SMBH population, their mass function, and the SMBH-stellar mass relation. Portions of this parameter space are testable by forthcoming direct detection experiments. The scenario may lead to distinctive gravitational wave (GW) signatures from SMBH mergers, accessible to Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) and pulsar timing array (PTA) observations.