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How Fast Could Supermassive Black Holes Grow at the Epoch of Reionization?

  • Authors: Ziyong Wu, Renyue Cen, Romain Teyssier

Ziyong Wu et al 2025 The Astrophysical Journal Letters 993 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 4.

Following A. J. Taylor et al. (2025), we present the redshifts and BH masses from our simulations, along with the population of spectroscopically confirmed quasars at z > 6. We also include a simple growth model for 102 M (blue shading) and 104 M (red shading) BH seeds accreting at the Eddington limit. A vertical black dotted line marks the transition from the super-Eddington accretion phase to the self-regulation phase. By z ∼ 10, the SMBH in the steadier, Eddington-limited scenario surpasses its initially super-Eddington jump-start counterpart in mass, indicating that the Eddington-limited mode provides the fastest sustainable pathway for SMBH growth. To account for the ≳109 M quasars observed at z = 7–10, seed BHs with initial masses of 104–105 M are required.

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