HEP Theory Journal Club

Direct collapse black holes from superconducting cosmic strings

Bryce Cyr

McGill

The observation of supermassive black holes in high redshift quasars presents a tantalizing mystery in astrophysics and cosmology, as they are difficult to explain within the standard LCDM paradigm. I will briefly review these challenges, and introduce a possible resolution through the monolithic collapse of a primordial gas cloud. I will present the astrophysical conditions necessary to achieve such a collapse, and show how a gas cloud surrounding a superconducting cosmic string is an ideal environment to satisfy these conditions. Finally, I will discuss the nuances of combining other constraints on superconducting strings with this idea, as well as introduce ongoing work to predict the number density of these string-seeded black holes.