Early formation of supermassive black holes via dark matter self-interactions

Understand

The existence of supermassive black holes at high redshifts ($z\sim7$) is difficult to accommodate in standard astrophysical scenarios.

• It has been shown that dark matter models with a subdominant self-interacting component are able to produce early seeds for supermassive black holes through the gravothermal catastrophe.
• Previous studies used a fluid equation approach, requiring some limiting assumptions.
• Here we reconsider the problem using $N$-body gravitational simulations starting from the formation of the initial dark matter halo.