Massive black holes at high redshifts from superconducting cosmic strings

Abstract

ABSTRACT The observation of quasars at high redshifts presents a mystery in the theory of black hole formation. In order to source such objects, one often relies on the presence of heavy seeds ($M \approx 10^{4-6}{\rm M}_{\odot }$) in place at early times. Unfortunately, the formation of these heavy seeds are difficult to realize within the standard astrophysical context. Here, we investigate whether superconducting cosmic string loops can source sufficiently strong overdensities in the early universe to address this mystery. We review a set of direct collapse conditions under which a primordial gas cloud will undergo monolithic collapse into a massive black hole (forming with a mass of $M_{\rm BH} \approx 10^5{\rm M}_{\odot }$ at z ≈ 300 in our scenario), and systematically show how superconducting cosmic string loops can satisfy such conditions in regions of the Gμ − I parameter space.