Extremely large Black Hole discovered 900M years after BB

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SUMMARY

An extremely large black hole, approximately 1.2 × 1010M⊙, has been discovered at redshift z=6.30, existing just 900 million years after the Big Bang. This finding challenges existing models of black hole formation, particularly the standard cosmological model, which struggles to explain the existence of such massive black holes in the early universe. The discovery raises questions about the mechanisms of black hole growth and the coevolution of black holes and galaxies, suggesting that direct collapse models may be more applicable than previously thought. The implications of these findings necessitate a reevaluation of our understanding of cosmic expansion and the age of the universe.

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Not clear why that would have anything to do with the standard model (which is about fundamental particles, not black hole formation) but it does apparently break one of the models of black hole formation which says you just can't get one that big that early according to both the article I read about it (which was different that the one you linked to) and the one you linked to.
 
I think by the standard model he means the standard cosmological model.
 
Yet another example of well developed objects being found in the early universe An Age Problem (again)?

That thread was prompted by the discovery of a 1.1x1010M BH at z=5.18, and now this BH is ~1.2 × 1010M seen at z=6.30

From the Nature letter http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/full/nature14241.html#close
So far, roughly 40 quasars with redshifts greater than z = 6 have been discovered. Each quasar contains a black hole with a mass of about one billion solar masses . The existence of such black holes when the Universe was less than one billion years old presents substantial challenges to theories of the formation and growth of black holes and the coevolution of black holes and galaxies. Here we report the discovery of an ultraluminous quasar, SDSS J010013.02+280225.8, at redshift z = 6.30. It has an optical and near-infrared luminosity a few times greater than those of previously known z > 6 quasars.
(emphasis mine)

Is it time yet to question our understanding of the expansion history of the early universe I wonder?

Garth
 
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The existence of supermassive black holes in high z quasars has been known for quite some time and it is not easy to explain them in a bottom up hierarchical model. I think this favors the direct collapse model. In the early universe primordial metallicity was virtually non existent, hence, the usual Jeans mass constraints are not an issue. Just like pop III stars are believed capable of achieving enormous masses, it is not unreasonable to speculate massive primordial gas clouds may have jumped the evolutionary track and collapsed directly into intermediate or supermassive black holes. It appears this would permit sufficient time for the whales known to exist at z=6+ to form. For discussion see http://www.physics.ucsb.edu/news/event/993
 
Other authors are studying the 'Age Problem' and seeking ways of alleviating it: Stars older than the universe and possible mechanism of their creation
An impressive bulk of multiple astronomical observations indicates that there are plenty of objects in the universe with the age which cannot be explained by the conventional theory. A model is considered which successfully describes all these puzzling phenomena.

The 'time breaks down' suggestion can be re-phrased - as I asked in #4, "Is it time yet to question our understanding of the expansion history of the early universe?"

In other words, as we can only observe z and not 't' the latter can not be considered on its own, but only as a factor in the expansion rate of the universe, therefore it is a(t) that is relevant.

If a(t) is modified, say by the existence of another form of DE operating in the early universe, then the age of the universe at a set z can be increased, thus relieving the 'age problem' in the early universe.

One paper that looks at this is Power-law cosmology, SN Ia, and BAO.

Garth
 
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I am starting to favour the argument that supermassive BHs have been created during the BB.
 
  • #11
Tanelorn said:
I am starting to favour the argument that supermassive BHs have been created during the BB.
Yes - but the problem is that if these SMBHs form by the "direct collapse model" (thank you Chronos) in the early stages of the 'BB' then that would be an ultra-bright very quick process at very high z followed by a relatively dark era.

These SMBH's are very bright objects ("ultra-luminous quasar"s) at almost the Eddington limit. Their brightness indicates some form of continuous accretion, and whether you can reconcile that with the age-at-z under the standard \LambdaCDM model is the problem.

Garth
 
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  • #12
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  • #13
In a sufficiently matter rich environment a black hole can feast to godzilla size in a relatively short amount of time. Quasars are believed to be examples of this behavior. AGN galaxies are believed to result when a black hole has consumed most of the matter available to them. That would seem to suggest the most massive SMBH's should be found in such galaxies. I'm not sure if the observational evidence supports this possibility.
 
  • #14
Garth said:
Yes - but the problem is that if these SMBHs form by the "direct collapse model" (thank you Chronos) in the early stages of the 'BB' then that would be an ultra-bright very quick process at very high z followed by a relatively dark era.

These SMBH's are very bright objects ("ultra-luminous quasar"s) at almost the Eddington limit. Their brightness indicates some form of continuous accretion, and whether you can reconcile that with the age-at-z under the standard \LambdaCDM model is the problem.

Garth

A simple question. Why, almost immediately as the universe was transitioning from a gaseous state to a solid platform of matter would such a huge black hole be formed?
 
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  • #15
There are three ways of creating early BHs.

Micro-BHs might form in the pre-BBN phase when fluctuations increase local densities creating local Schwarzschild radii entrapping the matter and energy within; these are called 'Primordial Black Holes'.

New cosmological constraints on primordial black holes B. J. Carr, Kazunori Kohri, Yuuiti Sendouda, and Jun’ichi Yokoyama
We update the constraints on the fraction of the Universe going into primordial black holes in the mass range 109–1017g associated with the effects of their evaporations on big bang nucleosynthesis and the extragalactic photon background. We include for the first time all the effects of quark and gluon emission by black holes on these constraints and account for the latest observational developments. We then discuss the other constraints in this mass range and show that these are weaker than the nucleosynthesis and photon background limits, apart from a small range 1013–1014g, where the damping of cosmic microwave background anisotropies dominates. Finally we review the gravitational and astrophysical effects of nonevaporating primordial black holes, updating constraints over the broader mass range 1–1050g.

Primordial Black Holes : Tunnelling vs. No Boundary Proposal Raphael Bousso, R & Stephen Hawking,
In the inflationary era, black holes came into existence together with the universe through the quantum process of pair creation. We calculate the pair creation rate from the no boundary proposal for the wave function of the universe.

These micro-PBHs should be exploding via Hawking radiation about now - although it is generally thought that these have not yet been observed, however these PBMs might be the source of some GRBs and maybe the source of the observed very high energy cosmic rays.

Such PBHs have been suggested as a component of Dark Matter, but because of the 'constraints' discussed in the papers above (and others) they cannot be a major component of DM.

But in answer to your question, "Why, almost immediately as the universe was transitioning from a gaseous state to a solid platform of matter would such a huge black hole be formed?"

Later on after the time of CMB emission and at the beginning of large scale structure formation, DM could form into a dense halo that might attract sufficient baryonic matter to collapse within that total mass's (DM + m) Schwarzschild radius and form a SMBH directly. This so far has been my 'hand waving', but you can work out the details yourself!:cool:

Or there might be a population of IMBMs formed as the demise of PopIII stars which might then spiral together into a SMBH (via gravitational wave radiation).

The problem with these last two scenarios is after the initial formation period the mass would be within its Schwarzschild radius and so be dark, but the one observed is 'ultra-luminous' - after all that is why it was found!

There might indeed be dark SMBHs formed by the two processes above that we know nothing about, but the one observed would seem to have had to have been formed by a process of continuous accretion to give it the luminosity.

The problem is that to give such a luminosity the accretion rate is limited by photon pressure - giving the Eddington limit. Our quasar at z=6.30 is right up against this limit as it has a mass of ~1.2x1010M whereas the Eddington Limit at that redshift is 1.3x1010M and so raises the question, "Has there realistically been enough time at z=6.30 for this body to form?"

Garth
 
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  • #16
Thanks Garth. That information will keep me busy for some time. But another question if I may, is this. What productive good, if any, do BHs perform?
 
  • #17
Orien Rigney said:
Thanks Garth. That information will keep me busy for some time. But another question if I may, is this. What productive good, if any, do BHs perform?
That could be a much bigger question, depending on which speculative theories you are prepared to follow!

As Tanelorn has posted #12 BHs seem to be related in some way to the size and structure of some galaxies. http://phys.org/news/2015-01-relationship-involving-black-holes-galaxies.html#nRlv

They might even be involved in the formation of most galaxies.

In Smolin's Cosmological Natural Selection Theory each BH spawns a new universe through the 'singularity' at its centre. These new universes reflect the physical characteristics (laws, physical constants etc) of their parent universe but with some differences. The process continues with an infinite number of such universes evolving to maximize the number of BH's within them. It so happens that the physical constants necessary for life are also those that maximize the number of BHs within any such universe. So here we are - in this universe together with a lot of BHs!

So a productive good of BH's might be even your own existence, if you believe the theory that is. You can't actually see these other universes of course, and we have no idea what happens inside a BH's 'singularity' (Interstellar not withstanding) so it all depends on what you are prepared to believe in...

BTW Orien, going back to you original question "Why, almost immediately as the universe was transitioning from a gaseous state to a solid platform of matter would such a huge black hole be formed?" - the first half of the question is badly formed. I didn't correct it at the time as my answer was long anyway.

What you are referring to is the process of combination at the time the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) was last emitted.

Before then the matter in the universe, mostly hydrogen, was in plasma form. It was ionized into protons and electrons. Light was continuously scattered by this plasma and the universe was therefore opaque.

As the universe expanded its temperature dropped to around 3,000oK. At this temperature the hydrogen ions and electrons combined into atomic hydrogen. The universe now became transparent and the hydrogen was gaseous.

As we look back the furthest possible distance, we can see this epoch (in the microwave part of the spectrum) as the 'Surface of Last Scattering' about 300,000 years 'after BB' (at z=1100).

The CMB has very slight fluctuations in it, to one part to ~100,000. The fluctuations of over dense matter went onto to form the galactic clusters, and the under dense regions formed the vast voids, that we see in the universe today.

But how this gaseous hydrogen and helium went onto form galactic clusters, galaxies and stars - the Large Scale Structure - is the next part of the story.

DM must have played a major part in getting ordinary matter (baryonic hydrogen and helium) to condense down so quickly into the high-z objects observed in the early universe.

But as your original question went onto ask, and the subject of this thread, - how did such a bright quasar with such a massive BH form so early?Garth
 
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  • #18
I always thought that SMBHs play a very important part in galaxy development, structure and order. Also SMBHs certainly continue to grow over Billions of years, but perhaps they needed to be there first in order for a large galaxy to form instead of structures something like a globular cluster? i.e. What came first the chicken or the egg?
 
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  • #19
I spent a couple of days musing a period following the Big Bang Theory when stars supposedly started forming. I’m not saying the time line is wrong following the “Dark Ages”, only that the sequence of what came first could possibly be skewed. The link below is NASAs own version of the periods of development. http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/144789main_CMB_Timeline75_lg.jpg
Perhaps when things had cooled to where quarks, gluons and other sub particles began forming into atoms, is it possible this vast universal sea of highly magnetized matter was transformed almost immediately into massive and “condensed galaxies”? Think of one of your first k-12 experiments using iron filings, a bar magnet and a sheet of paper.” Zip”! All of the filings tried to pile up on the one pole when it was extended upward beneath the paper. No mono-poles back then either. Just head to tail, head to tail. Could it be this coalescence created giant orbs that eventually spun themselves into centrifugal dervishes before flying apart to form gaseous galaxies, and then into stars?
 
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  • #20
Orien Rigney said:
Perhaps when things had cooled to where quarks, gluons and other sub particles began forming into atoms, is it possible this vast universal sea of highly magnetized matter was transformed almost immediately into massive and “condensed galaxies”? Think of one of your first k-12 experiments using iron filings, a bar magnet and a sheet of paper.” Zip”! All of the filings tried to pile up on the one pole when it was extended upward beneath the paper. No mono-poles back then either. Just head to tail, head to tail. Could it be this coalescence created giant orbs that eventually spun themselves into centrifugal dervishes before flying apart to form gaseous galaxies, and then into stars?
Er no, now you are guessing - if you cannot refer to published articles try not to extend yourself beyond asking questions.

The "quarks, gluons and other sub particles" you referred to began forming nuclei, not atoms (atoms were still in the far future 300,000 years later), at the beginning of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis from ~10-1 to 103 seconds, although the process was essentially over after 3 minutes from the 'BB'.

At the Surface of Last Scattering, 300,000 years, later (the origin of the CMB) baryonic matter had to be very smooth and homogeneous to one part in 100,000. Any condensation or accretion of baryonic matter had to happen after this.

Garth
 
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  • #21
Well things are very quiet out there, probably a lot of people are now trying to figure out how to account for this.
 
  • #22
Tanelorn said:
I always thought that SMBHs play a very important part in galaxy development, structure and order. Also SMBHs certainly continue to grow over Billions of years, but perhaps they needed to be there first in order for a large galaxy to form instead of structures something like a globular cluster? i.e. What came first the chicken or the egg?
That would seem to be a sensible suggestion ('top down' rather than 'bottom up') but how did such large (and in this thread - bright) SMBH's get there so quickly?

Garth
 
  • #23
  • #25
900M years after BB
Such a big black hole would have been growing and still be growing.
Is it?
Where is it after 14 B years?
 
  • #26
It cannot be observed as it is today because of its distance and finite speed of light.
 
  • #27
Does the universe expand at the speed of light and speed of gravity?
If yes, then we would have never seen those black holes.
Those black hole are therefore, within our horizon and still growing.
You should be able to see even bigger black hole that are closer to the present time.
 
  • #28
jal said:
Does the universe expand at the speed of light and speed of gravity?
If yes, then we would have never seen those black holes.
Those black hole are therefore, within our horizon and still growing.
You should be able to see even bigger black hole that are closer to the present time.
Those BHs are seen at z > 6, they may be still growing but we would never know that, unless we wait a few billion years to see how they get on.

By that time, however, they may well be beyond our horizon (in a flat universe) if Dark Energy carries on accelerating the universe's expansion.

There indeed may be bigger BH's closer to us that we haven't discovered yet because they are not so bright, or because they are obscured by closer galaxies or dust that have got in the way.

Garth
 
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  • #30
Tanelorn said:
The other problem is that there seems to be only one (or few) of these behemoths..
We should be able to see more examples if they were created early after the BB.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDSS_J0100+2802

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-st...time_b_6759924.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
Whereas SDSS J0100+2802 (the subject of this thread) is one of the most luminous the paper An ultra-luminous quasar with a twelve-billion-solar-mass black hole at redshift 6.30 states
So far, roughly 40 quasars with redshifts greater than z= 6 have been discovered. Each quasar contains a black hole with a mass of one billion solar masses (109M)
(emphasis mine)

So a bit more than "one, or a few".

Garth
 

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