Gravothermal Collapse of Self-Interacting Dark Matter Halos and the Origin of Massive Black Holes

Black hole formation is an inevitable consequence of relativistic core collapse following the gravothermal catastrophe in self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) halos. Very massive SIDM halos form supermassive black holes (SMBHs) >~10⁶M_solar directly. Smaller halos believed to form by redshift z = 5 produce seed black holes of (10²-10³)M_solar which can merge and/or accrete to reach the observational SMBH range. This scenario for SMBH formation requires no baryons, no prior star formation, and no other black hole seed mechanism.