Toward Black Hole Stars: Supermassive Black Hole Growth in Nuclear Clusters via Stellar-object and Gas Accretion
Abstract
Abstract Supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth plausibly occurs via runaway astrophysical black hole mergers in nuclear star clusters that form intermediate mass black hole seeds at high redshifts. Such a model yields an order-of-magnitude higher rate of tidal disruption events than that of compact-object captures. Our prediction, normalized to our proposed resolution of SMBH seeding, yields detectable tidal disruption event rates at high redshift. The resulting dense gas cocoons generate compact galactic nuclei, each incorporating a central, massive, black hole star, with comparable masses in gas, stars, and massive black holes within a scale of around a parsec as inferred from the various Little Red Dot spectral signatures.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research
Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae
Publication details
- Journal / source
- The Astrophysical Journal Letters
- Publisher
- American Astronomical Society
- Volume
- 1000
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- L21–L21
- Publication date
- 16 March 2026
- Language
- EN