An international team of scientists has discovered that giant black holes can form not only from baryonic matter that makes up stars, nebulae and planets, but also from dark matter. This could explain the mystery behind the appearance of supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies, where clusters of dark matter become especially dense. The physicists’ article was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
It is known that supermassive black holes began to form as early as 800 million years after the Big Bang, which poses a problem for modern theoretical models, according to which black holes could not grow so fast. According to the article, in the center of galaxies there may be nuclei of dark matter, surrounded by a more diffuse halo. Sometimes these structures can become so concentrated that they quickly reach critical density and collapse into black holes.
Such a scenario does not require much time and fits into the framework of the theory of the formation of supermassive black holes in the early Universe, when the processes of star formation were just beginning.
Another interesting consequence of the hypothesis is that supermassive black holes may be absent in dwarf galaxies, since dark matter nuclei in them do not reach critical density. At the same time, the core of dark matter by gravitational signatures can be confused with a black hole. Also, the dark matter halo affects the rotation of dwarf galaxies, which is what scientists are currently observing.