Supermassive Black Hole Formation

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Speaker(s): Christine Corbett Moran

Supermassive black holes are in place by the first billion years of the universe’s existence. Several promising channels have be proposed for their formation, but forming supermassive black holes in the requisite time-frame remains a theoretical puzzle. One promising channel is that of direct collapse, in which a cloud of gas collapses to a massive seed black hole that then grows to supermassive size via accretion. In this talk I will give an overview of potential supermassive black hole formation channels and outline a suite of 3D hydrodynamical simulations probing conditions conducive to formation of a massive seed black hole via direct collapse.

Colloquium

Junior and senior physics majors attend our biweekly colloquium series, held on Tuesday afternoons at 4:30 p.m. in Shanahan B460. The talks are open to all students and to the public, and are frequently attended by scientists from the other Claremont Colleges, Cal Poly Pomona, and others. The series features speakers from a broad range of institutions and fields of physics.