CTC Seminar: Aklant Bhowmick (UVA), Towards Unravelling the Origins of Supermassive Black Holes using Cosmological Simulations

Towards Unravelling the Origins of Supermassive Black Holes using Cosmological Simulations

Aklant Bhowmick 
GECO Fellow

Abstract: The origins of supermassive black holes (SMBHs), weighing millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun, remain one of the deepest mysteries in astrophysics. What was the nature of the first “seed” black holes? How did they grow into the SMBHs we observe today? And what role did they play in shaping their host galaxies? Recent observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed an abundance of black holes in the distant early Universe, firmly establishing that such objects existed from the dawn of galaxy formation. The presence of massive black holes at such early times poses a significant challenge to current theories of black hole formation and growth. In this talk, I will present recent advances in modeling the birth and evolution of supermassive black holes using cosmological simulations, and how these predictions can be compared directly with JWST observations to constrain different formation scenarios. These simulations explore multiple pathways—from the remnants of the first stars to the direct collapse of pristine gas—each leaving distinct imprints on the early black hole population. Beyond the electromagnetic window, they also predict a rich population of merging black holes whose gravitational-wave signals, to be detected by the upcoming Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), may offer some of the strongest constraints yet on the origins of supermassive black holes.

Host: Ankita Bera