Formation of Supermassive Black Holes by Direct Collapse

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。Begelman博士将研究宇宙中最大质量黑洞的形成和增长。 这些是在发光星系中心发现的发光活动核的动力来源。 黑洞必须迅速增长，因为发光类星体在大爆炸后不到20亿年就已经发光了。 他将与一位博士后研究人员一起探索一个相当详细的大质量黑洞是如何诞生的。 快速向内下落的气体首先形成一个受重力约束的核心，然后被外层气体的重量压缩。 这种结构会塌缩（由于热中微子损失），形成一个被气体包围的黑洞，物质继续从气体中落入。 该团队将使用一维恒星演化计算来检查这些物体的结构，并使用流体动力学代码ZEUS来研究落入黑洞的物质的辐射压力如何吹走包裹黑洞的气体。Begelman博士计划为他1996年出版的畅销书《重力的致命吸引力》（与Martin Rees合著）编写第二版，其中将纳入这项研究的结果，并编写一本指导教师指南，使这本书成为本科生调查课程的教材。 他将开发一个天文馆展示黑洞如何塑造星系的成长，将呈现给公众和K-12学校团体在美国。科罗拉多的菲斯克天文馆。 博士后研究员将通过参与研究进行培训。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Dr. Begelman will study the formation and growth of the most massive black holes in the cosmos. These are the powerhouses for the luminous active nuclei that are found at the centers of luminous galaxies. The black holes must grow rapidly, since luminous quasars were already shining less than two billion years after the Big Bang. With a postdoctoral researcher, he will explore a fairly detailed picture for how massive black holes could be born. Gas rapidly falling inward first forms a gravitationally bound core, which is then compressed by the weight of the outer layers of gas. This structure collapses (due to thermal neutrino losses) to form a black hole surrounded by an envelope of gas, from which material continues to fall in. The team will examine the structure of these objects using one-dimensional stellar evolution calculations, and use the hydrodynamic code ZEUS to study how the pressure of radiation from material falling onto the black hole blows away the gas enveloping the black hole. Dr Begelman plans to prepare a second edition of his 1996 popular book 'Gravity's Fatal Attraction' (with Martin Rees) which will incorporate results from this research, and write an instructor's guide to make the book useful as a text for undergraduate survey courses. He will develop a planetarium show on how black holes shape the growth of galaxies, to be presented to the public and K-12 school groups at U. Colorado's Fiske Planetarium. A postdoctoral researcher will be trained by participation in the research.