General relativistic simulations of black hole seed formation in the early universe

The discovery of supermassive black holes with masses exceeding a billion solar masses within the first billion years of the universe presents a profound challenge to our understanding of black hole formation and growth. Observations from JWST, SDSS, and Chandra have revealed an abundance of high-redshift quasars, motivating the need to investigate how massive black hole seeds could have formed early enough to explain them. We study this problem using general relativistic simulations that explore plausible astrophysical pathways for the birth of heavy black hole seeds. By evolving self-gravitating systems under full 3+1 general relativity, we aim to quantify the conditions under which direct collapse leads to black hole formation, providing insights that may help solve the long-standing mystery of how the universe formed its first massive black holes.