arXiv subjects

B. Reinoso

Publications and source records attributed to B. Reinoso.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Quantifying collision-driven mass loss in supermassive star formation: the role of stellar structure and accretion

Observations of high-redshift galaxies with JWST have renewed interest in scenarios where supermassive stars form via runaway stellar collisions in dense clusters, yet the impact of collision-driven mass loss on their growth remains uncertain. In this work, we perform a post-processing analysis of 3D hydrodynamical simulations of the formation of a supermassive star, applying an analytic mass-loss prescription to stellar collisions while exploring different assumptions for the internal stellar structure. We consider a polytropic main-sequence model, a semi-analytic accreting protostar model, and structures derived from stellar evolution calculations. We find that the cumulative mass-loss fraction depends sensitively on the adopted stellar structure, ranging from $\lesssim 10-25\%$ for more compact configurations to $\gtrsim 30-40\%$ for more extended protostellar models. The importance of mass loss further depends on the dynamical state of the system, including the ratio of stellar velocity dispersion to the stellar surface escape velocity. We find significant uncertainty depending on the prescription used. As a result, collision-driven mass loss could significantly limit the growth of the central object, at least in some cases. Overall, our results indicate that uncertainties in the internal structure of rapidly accreting protostars represent a major source of systematic uncertainty and must be better constrained to robustly assess the viability of runaway-collision pathways for forming massive black hole seeds.

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arXiv2025

Massive black hole formation in Population III star clusters

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed a population of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) that challenge existing black hole (BH) formation models. These newly observed BHs seem overmassive compared to the host galaxies and have an unexpectedly high abundance. Their exact origin remains elusive. The primary goal of this work is to investigate the formation of massive BH seeds in dense Population III (Pop III) star clusters. Using a cosmological simulation of Pop III cluster formation, we present models for the assembly and subsequent evolution of these clusters. The models account for background gas potential, stellar collisions and associated mass loss, gas accretion, stellar growth, their initial mass function (IMF), and subsequent star formation. We conduct $N$-body simulations of these models over a span of 2 million years. Our results show that BHs of $> 400$ M$_\odot$ are formed in all cases, reaching up to $\sim 5000$ M$_\odot$ under optimistic yet reasonable conditions and potentially exceeding 10$^4$ M$_\odot$ provided that high accretion rates of 10$^{-3}$ M$_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$ onto the stars can be sustained. We conclude that massive BHs can be formed in Pop III stellar clusters and are likely to remain within their host clusters. These BHs may experience further growth as they sink into the galaxy's potential well. This formation channel should be given further consideration in models of galaxy formation and BH demographics.

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arXiv2025

Formation of supermassive stars in the first stellar clusters: Dependence on the gas temperature

The origin of supermassive black holes is an open question that has been explored considering gas- and collision-based formation channels to explain the high number of quasars observed in the early Universe. According to numerical simulations, supermassive stars can be formed in atomic cooling halos when protostars reach accretion rates greater than $\sim 10^{-2}~\mathrm{M_{\odot}~yr^{-1}}$ and fragmentation is inhibited on parsec scales. It remains uncertain, however, whether fragmentation on smaller scales leads to the formation of a star cluster instead of a supermassive star in the presence of possible cooling mechanisms. We explored the formation of a central massive object through collisions and the accretion of Population III stars in a primordial gas cloud in a gravitationally unstable system by varying the gas temperature and the degree of gravitational instability. We performed multiphysics simulations in the AMUSE framework with a hydrodynamical gas treatment through Smoothed-particle hydrodynamics and $N$-body dynamics for the protostars represented through sink particles. Our results show that central massive objects with masses $\sim 10^4~\mathrm{M_{\odot}}$ can be formed by accretion and collisions at different temperatures and that the most massive object can reach efficiencies of $\sim 0.61$ for atomic cooling conditions and $\sim 0.95$ for more unstable conditions. We observe a quasi-disk formation for warmer temperatures and a higher contribution through collisions to the mass of a central massive object. Our results show that the embedded cluster is in a supercompetitive accretion regime in which it obtains mass by accretion that is regulated by self-gravity. Our results suggest that in more unstable conditions with lower gas temperatures, a more massive supermassive black hole seed can form.

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arXiv2024

Efficiency of black hole formation via collisions in stellar systems: An analysis of data from simulations and observations

This paper explores the theoretical relation between star clusters and black holes within, focusing on the potential role of nuclear star clusters (NSCs), globular clusters (GCs), and ultra compact dwarf galaxies (UCDs) as environments that allow for black hole formation via stellar collisions. This study aims to identify the optimal conditions for stellar collisions across a range of stellar systems leading to the formation of very massive stars that subsequently collapse into black holes. We analyze data from numerical simulations and observations of diverse stellar systems, encompassing various initial conditions, initial mass functions, and evolution scenarios. We computed a critical mass, determined by the interplay of collision time, system age, and initial properties of the star cluster. The efficiency of black hole formation ($ε_{\mathrm{BH}}$) is defined as the ratio of initial stellar mass divided by critical mass. We find that stellar systems with a ratio of initial stellar mass over critical mass above 1 exhibit a high efficiencies in terms of black hole formation, ranging from $30-100\%$. While there is some scatter, potentially attributed to complex system histories and the presence of gas, the results highlight the potential for achieving high efficiencies via a purely collisional channel in black hole formation. In conclusion, this theoretical exploration elucidates the connection between star clusters and black hole formation. The study underscores the significance of UCDs, GCs, and NSCs as environments conducive to the black hole formation scenario via stellar collisions. The defined black hole formation efficiency ($ε_{\mathrm{BH}}$) is shown to be influenced by the ratio of the initial stellar mass to the critical mass.

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arXiv2023

Global instability by runaway collisions in nuclear stellar clusters: Numerical tests of a route for massive black hole formation

The centres of galaxies host nuclear stellar clusters, supermassive black holes, or both. The origin of this dichotomy is still a mystery. Nuclear stellar clusters are the densest stellar system in the Universe, so they are ideal places for runaway collisions to occur. Previous studies have proposed the possible existence of a critical mass scale in such clusters, for which the occurrence of collisions becomes very frequent and leads to the formation of a very massive object. While it is difficult to directly probe this scenario with simulations, we here aim for a proof of concept using toy models where the occurrence of such a transition is shown based on simplified compact systems, where the typical evolution time-scales will be faster compared to the real Universe. Indeed our simulations confirm that such a transition takes place and that up to 50 per cent of the cluster mass can go into the formation of a central massive object for clusters that are above the critical mass scale. Our results thus support the proposed new scenario on the basis of idealized simulations. A preliminary analysis of observed nuclear star clusters shows similar trends related to the critical mass as in our simulations. We further discuss the caveats for the application of the proposed scenario in real nuclear star clusters.

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arXiv2022

Origin of supermassive black holes in massive metal-poor protoclusters

While large numbers of supermassive black holes have been detected at z>6, their origin is still essentially unclear. Numerical simulations have shown that the conditions for the classical direct collapse scenario are very restrictive and fragmentation is very difficult to be avoided. We thus consider here a more general case of a dense massive protostar cluster at low metallicity (<~ 10^{-3} Z_solar) embedded in gas. We estimate the mass of the central massive object, formed via collisions and gas accretion, considering the extreme cases of a logarithmically flat and a Salpeter-type initial mass function. Objects with masses of at least 10^4 solar could be formed for inefficient radiative feedback, whereas ~10^3 solar mass objects could be formed when the accretion time is limited via feedback. These masses will vary depending on the environment and could be considerably larger, particularly due to the continuous infall of gas into the cloud. As a result, one may form intermediate mass black holes of ~ 10^4 solar masses or more. Upcoming observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and other observatories may help to detect such massive black holes and their environment, thereby shedding additional light on such a formation channel.

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arXiv2021

Stellar collisions in flattened and rotating Pop. III star clusters

Fragmentation often occurs in disk-like structures, both in the early Universe and in the context of present-day star formation. Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are astrophysical objects whose origin is not well understood; they weigh millions of solar masses and reside in the centers of galaxies. An important formation scenario for SMBHs is based on collisions and mergers of stars in a massive cluster, in which the most massive star moves to the center of the cluster due to dynamical friction. This increases the rate of collisions and mergers since massive stars have larger collisional cross sections. This can lead to runaway growth of a very massive star which may collapse to become an intermediate-mass black hole. Here we investigate the dynamical evolution of Miyamoto-Nagai models that allow us to describe dense stellar clusters, including flattening and different degrees of rotation. We find that the collisions in these clusters depend mostly on the number of stars and the initial stellar radii for a given radial size of the cluster. By comparison, rotation seems to affect the collision rate by at most $20\%$. For flatness, we compared spherical models with systems that have a scale height of about $10\%$ of their radial extent, in this case finding a change in the collision rate of less than $25\%$. Overall, we conclude that the parameters only have a minor effect on the number of collisions. Our results also suggest that rotation helps to retain more stars in the system, reducing the number of escapers by a factor of $2-3$ depending on the model and the specific realization. After two million years, a typical lifetime of a very massive star, we find that about $630$ collisions occur in typical models with $N=10^4$, $R=100$ $\rm~R_\odot$ and a half-mass radius of $0.1$ $\rm~pc$, leading to a mass of about $6.3\times10^3$ $\rm~M_\odot$ for the most massive object.

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arXiv2020

The effects of a background potential in star cluster evolution: a delay in the relaxation time-scale and runaway collision processes

Runaway stellar collisions in dense star clusters are invoked to explain the presence of very massive stars or blue stragglers in the center of those systems. This process has also been explored for the first star clusters in the Universe and shown to yield stars that may collapse at some points into an intermediate mass black hole. Although the early evolution of star clusters requires the explicit modeling of the gas out of which the stars form, these calculations would be extremely time-consuming and often the effects of the gas can be accurately treated by including a background potential to account for the extra gravitational force. We apply this approximation to model the early evolution of the first dense star clusters formed in the Universe by performing $N$-body simulations, our goal is to understand how the additional gravitational force affects the growth of a very massive star through stellar mergers in the central parts of the star cluster. Our results show that the background potential increases the velocities of the stars, causing an overall delay in the evolution of the clusters and in the runaway growth of a massive star at the center. The population of binary stars is lower due to the increased kinetic energy of the stars, initially reducing the number of stellar collisions, and we show that relaxation processes are also affected. Despite these effects, the external potential enhances the mass of the merger product by a factor $\sim$2 if the collisions are maintained for long times.

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arXiv2018

Formation of massive black holes via collisions and accretion

To explain the observed population of supermassive black holes at z~7, very massive seed black holes or, alternatively, super-Eddington scenarios are needed to reach final masses of the order of 10^9 solar masses. A popular explanation for massive seeds has been the direct collapse model, which predicts the formation of a single massive object due to the direct collapse of a massive gas cloud. Simulations over the last years have however shown that such a scenario is very difficult to achieve. A realistic model of black hole formation should therefore take fragmentation into account, and consider the interaction between stellar-dynamical and gas-dynamical processes. We present here numerical simulations pursued with the AMUSE code, employing an approximate treatment of the gas. Based on these simulations, we show that very massive black holes of 10^4-10^5 solar masses may form depending on the gas supply and the accretion onto the protostars.

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arXiv2018

Collisions in Primordial Star Clusters: Formation Pathway for intermediate mass black holes

Collisions were suggested to potentially play a role in the formation of massive stars in present day clusters, and have likely been relevant during the formation of massive stars and intermediate mass black holes within the first star clusters. In the early Universe, the first stellar clusters were particularly dense, as fragmentation typically only occurred at densities above $10^9$cm$^{-3}$, and the radii of the protostars were enhanced due to the larger accretion rates, suggesting a potentially more relevant role of stellar collisions. We present here a detailed parameter study to assess how the number of collisions as well as the mass growth of the most massive object depends on the properties of the cluster, and we characterize the time evolution with three effective parameters, the time when most collisions occur, the duration of the collisions period, as well as the normalization required to obtain the total number of collisions. We apply our results to typical Population III (Pop.III) clusters of about $1000$M$_\odot$, finding that a moderate enhancement of the mass of the most massive star by a factor of a few can be expected. For more massive Pop.III clusters as expected in the first atomic cooling halos, we expect a more significant enhancement by a factor of $15-32$. We therefore conclude that collisions in massive Pop.III clusters were likely relevant to form the first intermediate mass black holes.

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arXiv2018

Formation of massive seed black holes via collisions and accretion

Models aiming to explain the formation of massive black hole seeds, and in particular the direct collapse scenario, face substantial difficulties. These are rooted in rather ad hoc and fine-tuned initial conditions, such as the simultaneous requirements of extremely low metallicities and strong radiation backgrounds. Here we explore a modification of such scenarios where a massive primordial star cluster is initially produced. Subsequent stellar collisions give rise to the formation of massive (10^4 - 10^5 solar mass) objects. Our calculations demonstrate that the interplay between stellar dynamics, gas accretion and protostellar evolution is particularly relevant. Gas accretion onto the protostars enhances their radii, resulting in an enhanced collisional cross section. We show that the fraction of collisions can increase from 0.1-1% of the initial population to about 10% when compared to gas-free models or models of protostellar clusters in the local Universe. We conclude that very massive objects can form in spite of initial fragmentation, making the first massive protostellar clusters viable candidate birth places for observed supermassive black holes.

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arXiv2017

Formation and Evolution of sub-structures in tidal tails: Spherical dark matter haloes

Recently a theory about the formation of over-densities of stars along tidal tails of globular clusters has been presented, this theory predicts the position and time of formation of such over-densities and was successfully tested with N-body simulations of globular clusters in a point mass galactic potential. In this work we present a comparison between this theory and our simulations using a dwarf galaxy orbiting two differently shaped dark matter halos to study the effects of a cored and a cuspy halo on the formation and evolution of tidal tails. We find no difference using a cuspy or a cored halo, however, we find an intriguing asymmetry between the leading and trailing arm of the tidal tails. The trailing arm grows faster than the leading arm. This asymmetry is seen in the distance to first over-density and its size as well. We establish a relation between the distance to the first over-density and the size of this over-density.

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