How did this ancient black hole get so big?

[Admin]

While it's much smaller than the largest supermassive black holes detected, it's still a whopper considering how early in the history of the universe it appeared.

How did this ancient black hole get so big? : Read more

 

[Unclear Engineer]

And there is also this theory: https://www.space.com/the-universe/...strous-black-holes-form-in-the-early-universe .

On the other hand, how about a theory that has "primordial" black holes being created at the observed sizes? It seems to me that the assumption that things were smoothly distributed in the early universe needs to be rethought.

I know that some will claim that the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is too evenly distributed to allow for black holes of such mass to be in existence at that time.

But, maybe we also need to rethink what the CMBR really is. There was a lot of confirmation bias in the adoption of the CMBR as the light that came from recombination of hydrogen and then the release of that radiation through space by the reionization of hydrogen. Maybe it is really something else? We are already having trouble explaining how we can even see some of the galaxies being observed by the Webb Telescope if that description of hydrogen in the early universe is true.

 

[Hildy]

I would go further and suggest that all early black holes, massive and supermassive, were created in the early universe before population 3 stars and are composed entirely of dark matter. Population 3 stars came and went later and seeded the galaxies that formed around the preexisting black holes.

 

[contrarian]

I would go further and suggest that all early black holes, massive and supermassive, were created in the early universe before population 3 stars and are composed entirely of dark matter.

It seems like the only rational explanation for all those young galaxies, with SMBHs, which are "not supposed to be there". But it is not required that dark matter was their only source of mass.

PBHs likely seeded the formation of all galaxies in the very early universe.

 

[Hildy]

But it is not required that dark matter was their only source of mass.

Except for one thing - when dark matter first formed, according to the theories I've read, there was no regular matter to form atoms because the universe was too hot.

I've mostly read about in relation to the birth and development of the cosmic web but I feel the gravity that drew the dark matter into the web could also draw it into super massive black holes.

 

[contrarian]

Except for one thing - when dark matter first formed, according to the theories I've read, there was no regular matter to form atoms because the universe was too hot.

That is certainly possible. I have read about that also, and it is believed to have occurred during the quark-gluon plasma which occurred about 1 microsecond after the Big Bang.

Other concepts suggest that dark matter formed once this plasma cooled to allow hadrons to form. This is when protons and neutrons (baryons) were forming. Some have suggested that hadrons larger than baryons may have also formed at this time, and that these particles represent most of the dark matter. They are looking for such particles with the LHC. Hopefully time will tell us more about this version of things......

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Wouldn't quarks have gravitational attraction?

If not, and neutron stars are on the verge of becoming quark-gluon stars, so black holes are even more likely to be such, then I would expect black holes to loss their mass, lose their gravitational effects, and release everything inside as photons or some other sort of "massless" stuff.

This playing around with assumptions to see what fits the data makes some sense when there is not much else in the way of assumptions in the model. But, once you get to a model that is completely dominated by prior assumptions that have resisted verification, just making something "fit" is pretty meaningless.

 

[contrarian]

Wouldn't quarks have gravitational attraction?

Yes, quarks are like all other particles with mass - they experience and promote gravitational attraction.

Quark star - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[whoknows]

If all conjecture is stripped away - to the absolute basics - why is a black hole deemed to be massively dense, rather than massively empty wrt its environs?

 

[Unclear Engineer]

If all conjecture is stripped away - to the absolute basics - why is a black hole deemed to be massively dense, rather than massively empty wrt its environs?

I am not sure what the "massively empty wrt its environs" means.

There is a lot of conjecture, because we are not able to closely inspect even the things we can see, such as White Dwarf Stars and Neutron Stars. So, much of their properties are based on subatomic physics experiments and associated theories.

If we accept that neutron stars exist in the form of all baryonic matter in them having been so compressed that it all turned into neutrons, then we have "stars" that are "dead" in that they are not producing more energy by nuclear fusion, and they are only several miles in diameter, but pack in the mass of up to a few of our Suns.

That isn't quite enough mass to produce an "event horizon" where the escape velocity from or above the surface of the mass exceeds the speed of light. But, pack in some more mass, and you do get an event horizon, so it is then a "black hole".

We can't see anything inside a black hole. so we really don't know if what is in there is just a bigger neutron star, or something that collapses to even greater density than neutrons. The current speculation is a "quark-gluon soup". There is even some speculation that the centers of large neutron stars that are not massive enough to be black holes have already had material in their centers transform into this "soup".

So maybe what is inside a black hole is a "Quark-Gluon Star" that is not much smaller than the event horizon for low mass black holes.

But, that is where conjecture completely takes over, because we can't see anything in there and the Theory of General Relativity apparently breaks down at the event horizon.

Some quantum theorists think that there is something more dense than a "quark-gluon soup", but quarks are also theorized to be "primary particles" that can't break down into something even smaller. So, what else is there?

Some theorize that all matter turns into energy at extreme densities. But, does that energy still have mass? If not, then wouldn't a black hold suddenly lose its gravity? Would that be a "big bang"?

Conjure away - nobody really knows!

 

[contrarian]

why is a black hole deemed to be massively dense, rather than massively empty wrt its environs?

If it were massively empty, how would it have such immense gravity?

 

[whoknows]

I know the thought from my post above sounds daft, and probably is!

If all conjecture is stripped away - to the absolute basics - then a massively empty volume (volume empty of mass) would have zero gravity. The question then arises whether the observed effects, interpreted as gravitational in conventional black hole theory, might arise through other means.

Conjurecturing suppose, as close as is absolutely possible near perfect vacuum holes exist in space - how would a push from without look different to a pull from within (bearing in mind the context of how those hypothetical vacuums may have formed)?