Magnetic Effects Promote Supermassive Star Formation in Metal-enriched Atomic-cooling Halos

Abstract

Abstract Intermediate-mass black holes (with ≥105 M ⊙) are promising candidates for the origin of supermassive black holes (with ∼109 M ⊙) in the early universe (redshift z ∼ 6). Chon & Omukai first pointed out direct collapse black hole (DCBH) formation in metal-enriched atomic-cooling halos (ACHs), which relaxes the DCBH formation criterion. On the other hand, Hirano et al. showed that magnetic effects promote DCBH formation in metal-free ACHs. We perform a set of magnetohydrodynamical simulations to investigate star formation in magnetized ACHs with metallicities Z/Z ⊙ = 0, 10−5, and 10−4. Our simulations show that the mass accretion rate onto the protostars becomes lower in metal-enriched ACHs than in metal-free ACHs. However, many protostars form from gravitationally and thermally unstable metal-enriched gas clouds. Under such circumstances, the magnetic field rapidly increases as magnetic field lines wind up due to the spin of protostars. The region with the amplified magnetic field expands outwards due to the orbital motion of protostars and the rotation of the accreting gas. The amplified magnetic field extracts angular momentum from the accreting gas, promotes the coalescence of low-mass protostars, and increases the mass growth rate of the primary protostar. We conclude that the magnetic field amplification is always realized in metal-enriched ACHs regardless of the initial magnetic field strength, which affects the DCBH formation criterion. In addition, we find a qualitatively different trend from the previous unmagnetized simulations in that the mass growth rate is maximal for extremely metal-poor ACHs with Z/Z ⊙ = 10−5.