Title:
The dynamics of black holes in the first galaxies

dc.contributor.advisor Cadonati, Laura
dc.contributor.author Shi, Chao
dc.contributor.committeeMember Wise, John
dc.contributor.committeeMember Shoemaker, Deirdre
dc.contributor.committeeMember Bogdanovic, Tamara
dc.contributor.committeeMember Vuduc, Richard
dc.contributor.department Physics
dc.date.accessioned 2017-08-17T18:58:52Z
dc.date.available 2017-08-17T18:58:52Z
dc.date.created 2017-08
dc.date.issued 2017-05-11
dc.date.submitted August 2017
dc.date.updated 2017-08-17T18:58:52Z
dc.description.abstract Black holes (BHs) as massive as 10^9 solar masses has been discovered at redshift z > 6, that is within one billion years after the big bang. It is believed that some seed black holes with large initial masses formed at very early times, which then grow to the supermassive black holes we observe at z ∼ 6. First stars (Pop III) remnants are considered to be one of the promising pathways to form such seed BHs. We study the dynamics of seed BHs formed out of Pop III star remnants through cosmological simulation. We evolve a representative volume across 1Mpc in comoving coordinates, and write 1000 outputs every ∼0.5 Myr. We then extract all seed BHs in each output and investigate the distribution and evolution of their orbital properties from redshift z ∼ 17 to z ∼ 9, which are crucial to their growth and merger rate. We show that most of seed BHs in halos are gravitationally bounded, and a significant fraction of them have orbits with short semi-major axes and high eccentricity. They are prime candidates for black hole mergers as they are the ones that will venture closest to the halo center and any massive black hole that might exist in the (proto-)galaxy center. We attempt to estimate the merger rate of BHs by calculating the loss rate of angular momentum, but find that this approach is not suitable for our simulation data.
dc.description.degree Ph.D.
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/58651
dc.language.iso en_US
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology
dc.subject Black hole
dc.subject Cosmology
dc.subject Astrophysics
dc.subject Simulation
dc.title The dynamics of black holes in the first galaxies
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Dissertation
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.advisor Cadonati, Laura
local.contributor.corporatename College of Sciences
local.contributor.corporatename School of Physics
relation.isAdvisorOfPublication 9d200651-9952-4a5e-98fa-c75f1cdc03d1
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 85042be6-2d68-4e07-b384-e1f908fae48a
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 2ba39017-11f1-40f4-9bc5-66f17b8f1539
thesis.degree.level Doctoral
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