Mitchell Begelman
JILA, University of Colorado, USA
Mitch Begelman (left) with Lucio Mayer
Date
21 March 2012
Host
Lucio Mayer
Title
The First Supermassive Black Holes
Abstract
The supermassive black holes that populate galactic nuclei could have grown from an early population of stars, or via the direct collapse of much larger masses of gas. I will discuss recent investigations of the latter possibility, focusing on the physics that may have regulated early black hole formation and growth. Black hole formation by direct collapse implies the existence of hitherto undetected classes of objects: hot, supermassive stars and red giant-like objects called “quasistars”. I will outline their predicted properties and prospects for detecting them.