MESA-QUEST: Tracing the Formation of Direct Collapse Black Hole Seeds via Quasi-stars

Abstract The origin of the first supermassive black holes (SMBHs) observed at redshifts z ≥ 9 remains one of the most challenging open questions in astrophysics. Their rapid emergence suggests that massive “heavy seeds” must have formed early, possibly through the direct collapse of pristine gas clouds in the first galaxies. We present Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA)-QUEST, a new framework built on the MESA code, designed to model the structure and evolution of quasi-stars—massive, radiation-supported envelopes hosting accreting black holes (BHs) at their cores—believed to be the progenitors of direct collapse BH seeds. Our implementation introduces flexible boundary conditions…

• SF
  Simons Foundation

  Award: MP-SCMPS-00001470