Direct collapse black hole formation from synchronized pairs of atomic cooling haloes

Abstract

High-redshift quasar observations imply that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) larger than ~109M( formed before z ~ 6. That such large SMBHs formed so early in the history of the Universe remains an open theoretical problem. One possibility is that gas in atomic cooling haloes exposed to strong Lyman-Werner (LW) radiation forms 104-106M( supermassive stars which quickly collapse into black holes. We propose a scenario for direct collapse black hole (DCBH) formation based on synchronized pairs of pristine atomic cooling haloes. We consider haloes at very small separation with one halo being a subhalo of the other. The first halo to surpass the atomic cooling threshold forms stars. Soon after these stars are formed, the other halo reaches the cooling threshold and due to its small distance from the newly formed galaxy, it is exposed to the critical LW intensity required to form a DCBH. The main advantage of this scenario is that synchronization can potentially prevent photoevaporation and metal pollution in DCBH-forming haloes. We use N-body simulations and an analytic approximation to estimate the abundance of DCBHs formed in this way. The density of DCBHs formed in this scenario could explain the SMBHs implied by z ~ 6 quasar observations. Metal pollution and photoevaporation could potentially reduce the abundance of DCBHs below that required to explain the observations in other models that rely on a high LW flux.