The First Massive Black Holes: Formation, Evolution, and Observational Signatures

最近从多波段测量中发现了数十个红移大于6的发光类星体，这表明在宇宙年龄不到10亿年的时候，存在着10亿个太阳质量的超大质量黑洞(SMBH)。这些前沿观察对理论模型提出了巨大的挑战。目前的研究人员已经为红移六类星体的形成发展了一套物理激励的多尺度宇宙学模拟，为研究早期宇宙中的黑洞和星系铺平了道路。目前的项目将改进这些模型，并利用它们进一步实现两个目标，第一，通过动态跟踪第一批SMBH的形成和演化，执行包括气体动力学和黑洞增长在内的多尺度宇宙辐射-流体模拟，第二，通过后处理多波长辐射传输和来自可能合并的引力辐射计算来预测它们的可观测性质。这项研究将为三个悬而未决的问题提供新的线索：1)黑洞的种子是什么？2)第一批SMBH是否与它们的宿主星系共同进化？3)它们的观测特性是什么？其他科学家普遍可用的数值进展包括在社区广泛使用的两个宇宙学代码中实施现实的吸积物理，以及在另一个广泛使用的代码中增加一氧化碳谱线转移。这些结果将对目前的观察和未来的调查都非常有用。预期的研究成果将为首席研究员在她的家乡机构的教学和外展活动提供信息和启发，并可能用于全国范围内的公共教育，继续与美国自然历史博物馆和探索频道现有的合作。

The recent discovery of dozens of luminous quasars at redshifts greater than six from multi-band surveys indicates the existence of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) of a billion solar masses when the universe was less than one billion years old. These frontier observations present a big challenge to theoretical models. The present researchers have developed a set of physically motivated multi-scale cosmological simulations for the formation of redshift six quasars, which pave the way for studying black holes and galaxies in the early universe. The current project will improve these models and use them to further two goals, first, by following the formation and evolution of the first SMBHs dynamically, performing multi-scale cosmological radiation-hydro simulations including gas dynamics and black hole growth, and second, by predicting their observable properties through post-processing multi-wavelength radiative transfer, and gravitational radiation calculations from possible mergers. The study will shed new light on three outstanding questions: 1) what were the black hole seeds? 2) did the first SMBHs co-evolve with their host galaxies? and 3) what are their observational properties?Numerical advances that will be generally available to other scientists include the implementation of realistic accretion physics in two cosmological codes widely used throughout the community, and the addition of carbon monoxide line transfers to another widely used code. The results will be extremely useful both for current observations and for future surveys. The anticipated research results will inform and enlighten the principal investigator's teaching and outreach activities at her home institution, and are likely to be used for public education nationwide, continuing an existing involvement with the American Museum of Natural History and the Discovery Channel.