Super-Eddington growth of the first black holes

Understand

The assembly of the first super massive black holes (SMBHs) at $z \gtrsim 6$ is still a subject of intense debate.

• If black holes (BHs) grow at their Eddington rate, they must start from $\gtrsim 10^4 \, M_\odot$ seeds formed by the direct collapse of gas.
• Here we explore the alternative scenario where $\sim 100 \, M_\odot$ BH remnants of the first stars grow at super-Eddington rate via radiatively inefficient slim accretion disks.
• We use an improved version of the cosmological, data-constrained semi-analytic model GAMETE/QSOdust, where we follow the evolution of nuclear BHs and gas cooling, disk and bulge formation of their host galaxies.