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将研究宇宙中最大质量黑洞的形成和成长。这些是在发光星系中心发现的发光活动核的发电站。黑洞必须迅速成长，因为在大爆炸后不到20亿年，明亮的类星体就已经在发光了。与一名博士后研究员一起，他将探索一个相当详细的图像，以了解大质量黑洞是如何诞生的。迅速向内下落的气体首先形成一个重力束缚的核心，然后被外层气体的重量压缩。这种结构坍塌（由于热中微子的损失），形成一个被气体包围的黑洞，物质继续落入其中。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来研究落在黑洞上的物质的辐射压力如何吹走包围黑洞的气体。Begelman博士计划为他1996年的畅销书《地心引力的致命吸引力》（与Martin Rees合作）准备第二版，该书将纳入这项研究的结果，并编写一份指导手册，使该书成为本科生调查课程的有用教材。他将在科罗拉多大学的菲斯克天文馆向公众和K-12学校团体展示黑洞如何塑造星系的成长。通过参与研究培养博士后研究员。

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.