Super-Eddington accreting supermassive black holes at high-redshift in cosmological simulations

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• Lucas Tortora / IoA
• Wednesday 05 November 2025, 13:15-13:40
• Hoyle Lecture theatre + Zoom .

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Xander Byrne.

The discovery of gargantuan black holes (BHs) with masses in excess of a billion solar masses at z > 6, confirmed by JWST observations, suggests extremely rapid BH growth and significant energy input into their host galaxies in the early Universe. As observations continue to probe these objects at higher redshifts, developing a robust theoretical framework for their formation and impact is crucial. In this work, we use high-resolution zoom-in simulations of a massive protocluster at z ∼ 6, employing both the fiducial FABLE galaxy formation model and a set of modifications to allow earlier seeding and super-Eddington accretion. These simulations have been shown to reproduce the most extreme quasars known in the early Universe. We perform full radiative transfer calculations in post-processing with a novel and accurate ray-tracing code to assess the effects of the quasar radiation field on its environment. We find that super-Eddington accretion results in strong feedback which launches powerful outflows, resulting in (i) increased abundance of fast cold gas and (ii) strengthened impact of the quasar radiation field, piercing far into the circumgalactic and intergalactic media.

This talk is part of the Institute of Astronomy Seminars series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Cambridge Astronomy Talks
• Combined External Astrophysics Talks DAMTP
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• Cosmology, Astrophysics and General Relativity
• Hoyle Lecture theatre + Zoom
• Institute of Astronomy Seminars
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