SMBH Formation via Gas Accretion in Nuclear Stellar Clusters

Understand

Black holes exceeding a billion solar masses have been detected at redshifts greater than six.

• The rapid formation of these objects may suggest a massive early seed or a period of growth faster than Eddington.
• Here we suggest a new mechanism along these lines.
• We propose that in the process of hierarchical structure assembly, dense star clusters can be contracted on dynamical time scales due to the nearly free-fall inflow of self-gravitating gas with a mass comparable to or larger than that of the clusters.