skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Search for: All records

Creators/Authors contains: "Patrick, Samuel"

Note: When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external site maintained by the publisher. Some full text articles may not yet be available without a charge during the embargo (administrative interval).
What is a DOI Number?

Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from this site.

  1. Abstract Supermassive primordial stars with masses exceeding ∼105Mthat form in atomically cooled halos are the leading candidates for the origin of high-redshift quasars atz> 6. Recent numerical simulations, however, find that multiple accretion disks can form within a halo, each of which can potentially host a supermassive star. We investigate the formation and evolution of secondary supermassive stars in atomically cooled halos, including strong variations in their accretion histories driven by gravitational interactions between their disks and those surrounding the primary supermassive stars in each halo. We find that all secondary disks produce long-lived supermassive stars under sustained rapid accretion. We also find, however, that the majority of secondary supermassive stars do undergo at least one protracted quiescent accretion phase, during which time they thermally relax and may become powerful sources of ionizing feedback. In many halos, the two satellite disks collide, suggesting that the two stars can come into close proximity. This may induce additional mass exchange between them, leading to a great diversity of possible outcomes. These range from coevolution as main-sequence stars to main sequence—black hole pairs and black hole—black hole mergers. We discuss the likely outcome for these binary interactions based on the evolutionary state of both supermassive stars at the end of our simulations, as well as prospects for their future detection by current and next-generation facilities. 
    more » « less