Supersonic gas streams left over from the Big Bang drive massive black hole formation

An international team of researchers has successfully recreated the formation of a massive black hole from supersonic gas streams left over from the Big Bang using a supercomputer ATERUI. Their study, published in this week’s Science, shows this black hole could be the source of the birth and development of the largest and oldest super-massive black holes recorded in our Universe.



Figure 1: Projected density distributions of dark matter (background and top panel) and gas (bottom three panels) components when the massive star forms. Credit: Shingo Hirano

This research was published in Science on September 28 and released from Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) on September 29. Please see details of this research from the following link;
Kavli IPMU press release: "Supersonic gas streams left over from the Big Bang drive massive black hole formation"
The University of Tokyo press release: "Supersonic gas streams left over from the Big Bang drive massive black hole formation"

Paper Details
Title: Supersonic gas streams enhance the formation of massive black holes inthe early universe
Authors: Shingo Hirano (University of Texas, JSPS Overseas Research Fellow), Takashi Hosokawa (Kyoto University), Naoki Yoshida (the University of Tokyo, Kavli IPMU), Rolf Kuiper (University of Tübingen)
Journal: Science, Vol.357, Issue 6358, pp. 1375-1378
DOI: 10.1126/science.aai9119


Supercomputer used in this work

The supercomputer “ATERUI” (Cray XC30) is a massively parallel supercomputer for astrophysical simulations. Its theoretical peak performance is 1.058 Pflops, making it the world’s fastest supercomputer dedicated to astronomical simulation. Since the installation of ATERUI at NAOJ Mizusawa Campus in 2013, approximately 140 users have used this system every year. (Image Credit: NAOJ)

Related Aeticle: Supercomputer for Astronomy “ATERUI” Upgraded to Double its Speed. (November 13, 2014)


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Related links

Professor Naoki Yoshida's website

Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin
School of Science, The University of Tokyo
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU)
Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University.
Priority Issue 9 to be Tackled by Using the Post-K Computer—"Elucidation of the Fundamental Laws and Evolution of the Universe"

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