Low-mass black holes as the remnants of primordial black hole formation

Abstract

Bridging the gap between the approximately ten solar mass ’stellar mass’ black holes and the ’supermassive’ black holes of millions to billions of solar masses are the elusive ’intermediate-mass’ black holes. Their discovery is key to understanding whether supermassive black holes can grow from stellar-mass black holes or whether a more exotic process accelerated their growth soon after the Big Bang. Currently, tentative evidence suggests that the progenitors of supermassive black holes were formed as ∼10 4 -10 5 M ⊙ black holes via the direct collapse of gas. Ongoing searches for intermediate-mass black holes at galaxy centres will help shed light on this formation mechanism. © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.