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Context.The detection of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in high-redshift luminous quasars may require a phase of rapid accretion, and as a precondition, substantial gas influx toward seed black holes (BHs) from kiloparsec or parsec scales. Our previous research demonstrated the plausibility of such gas supply for BH seeds within star-forming giant molecular clouds (GMCs) with high surface density (∼104 M⊙ pc−2), facilitating “hyper-Eddington” accretion via efficient feeding by dense clumps, which are driven by turbulence and stellar feedback. Aims.This article presents an investigation of the impacts of feedback from accreting BHs on this process, including radiation, mechanical jets, and highly relativistic cosmic rays. Methods.We ran a suite of numerical simulations to explore diverse parameter spaces of BH feedback, including the subgrid accretion model, feedback energy efficiency, mass loading factor, and initial metallicity. Results.Using radiative feedback models inferred from the slim disk, we find that hyper-Eddington accretion is still achievable, yielding BH bolometric luminosities of as high as 1041 − 1044 erg/s, depending on the GMC properties and specific feedback model assumed. We find that the maximum possible mass growth of seed BHs (ΔMmaxBH) is regulated by the momentum-deposition rate from BH feedback,ṗfeedback/(ṀBHc), which leads to an analytic scaling that agrees well with simulations. This scenario predicts the rapid formation of ∼104M⊙intermediate-massive BHs (IMBHs) from stellar-mass BHs within ∼1 Myr. Furthermore, we examine the impacts of subgrid accretion models and how BH feedback may influence star formation within these cloud complexes.more » « lessFree, publicly-accessible full text available November 1, 2025
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Abstract The origins and mergers of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) remain a mystery. We describe a scenario from a novel multiphysics simulation featuring rapid (≲1 Myr) hyper-Eddington gas capture by a ∼1000M⊙“seed” black hole (BH) up to supermassive (≳106M⊙) masses in a massive, dense molecular cloud complex typical of high-redshift starbursts. Due to the high cloud density, stellar feedback is inefficient, and most of the gas turns into stars in star clusters that rapidly merge hierarchically, creating deep potential wells. Relatively low-mass BH seeds at random positions can be “captured” by merging subclusters and migrate to the center in ∼1 freefall time (vastly faster than dynamical friction). This also efficiently produces a paired BH binary with ∼0.1 pc separation. The centrally concentrated stellar density profile (akin to a “protobulge”) allows the cluster as a whole to capture and retain gas and build up a large (parsec-scale) circumbinary accretion disk with gas coherently funneled to the central BH (even when the BH radius of influence is small). The disk is “hypermagnetized” and “flux-frozen”: dominated by a toroidal magnetic field with plasmaβ∼ 10−3, with the fields amplified by flux-freezing. This drives hyper-Eddington inflow rates ≳1M⊙yr−1, which also drive the two BHs to nearly equal masses. The late-stage system appears remarkably similar to recently observed high-redshift “little red dots.” This scenario can provide an explanation for rapid SMBH formation, growth, and mergers in high-redshift galaxies.more » « less
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Recent radiation-thermochemical-magnetohydrodynamic simulations resolved formation of quasar accretion disks from cosmological scales down to ~300 gravitational radii , arguing they were ‘hyper-magnetized’ (plasma supported by toroidal magnetic fields) and distinct from traditional -disks. We extend these, refining to around a BH with multi-channel radiation and thermochemistry, and exploring a factor of 1000 range of accretion rates ( ). At smaller scales, we see the disks maintain steady accretion, thermalize and self-ionize, and radiation pressure grows in importance, but large deviations from local thermodynamic equilibrium and single-phase equations of state are always present. Trans-Alfvenic and highly-supersonic turbulence persists in all cases, and leads to efficient vertical mixing, so radiation pressure saturates at levels comparable to fluctuating magnetic and turbulent pressures even for . The disks also become radiatively inefficient in the inner regions at high . The midplane magnetic field remains primarily toroidal at large radii, but at super-Eddington we see occasional transitions to a poloidal-field dominated state associated with outflows and flares. Large-scale magnetocentrifugal and continuum radiation-pressure-driven outflows are weak at , but can be strong at . In all cases there is a scattering photosphere above the disk extending to at large , and the disk is thick and flared owing to magnetic support (with nearly independent of ), so the outer disk is strongly illuminated by the inner disk and most of the inner disk continuum scatters or is reprocessed at larger scales, giving apparent emission region sizes as large as .more » « lessFree, publicly-accessible full text available January 1, 2026
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ABSTRACT Formation of supermassive black holes (BHs) remains a theoretical challenge. In many models, especially beginning from stellar relic ‘seeds,’ this requires sustained super-Eddington accretion. While studies have shown BHs can violate the Eddington limit on accretion disc scales given sufficient ‘fuelling’ from larger scales, what remains unclear is whether or not BHs can actually capture sufficient gas from their surrounding interstellar medium (ISM). We explore this in a suite of multiphysics high-resolution simulations of BH growth in magnetized, star-forming dense gas complexes including dynamical stellar feedback from radiation, stellar mass-loss, and supernovae, exploring populations of seeds with masses $$\sim 1\!-\!10^{4}\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }$$. In this initial study, we neglect feedback from the BHs: so this sets a strong upper limit to the accretion rates seeds can sustain. We show that stellar feedback plays a key role. Complexes with gravitational pressure/surface density below $$\sim 10^{3}\, \mathrm{M}_{\odot }\, {\rm pc^{-2}}$$ are disrupted with low star formation efficiencies so provide poor environments for BH growth. But in denser cloud complexes, early stellar feedback does not rapidly destroy the clouds but does generate strong shocks and dense clumps, allowing $$\sim 1{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$$ of randomly initialized seeds to encounter a dense clump with low relative velocity and produce runaway, hyper-Eddington accretion (growing by orders of magnitude). Remarkably, mass growth under these conditions is almost independent of initial BH mass, allowing rapid intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) formation even for stellar-mass seeds. This defines a necessary (but perhaps not sufficient) set of criteria for runaway BH growth: we provide analytic estimates for the probability of runaway growth under different ISM conditions.more » « less
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