Mitchell Begelman proposes a supermassive star of ~ a million solar masses as a progenitor to the universe's putative supermassive black holes. It's a good spot to toast a bagel (pun intended). SEE:http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/...910.4398v1.pdf


to appear in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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A third rate theory forbids.
A second rate theory explains after the fact.
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A. Lomonosov

I've been looking through this one. As nearly as I can tell, the idea for growing stars that big is that if the infalling material is extremely hot, its opacity drops so the Eddington limit for accretion rates goes much higher than the usual 10^38 erg/s per solar mass. This lets the star grow way beyond even the normally computed Population III levels. Almost any mechanism to help jump-start the growth of massive black holes is worth a close look.

I'm not an expert on this subject as Bill is, but what I read in the paper seems quite plausible to me. It's the first viable explanation that I've read on the subject. Thank you for posting.

Eric

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Eric. You're welcome. I always find novel stuff interesting...realized that the mass was way beyond the typical 100-200 Sol limit I usually see. It would be interesting to see how bright this baby would be if it goes supernova, which is expected of giant stars, and how that fits their standard luminosities. pete

__________________
A third rate theory forbids.
A second rate theory explains after the fact.
A first rate theory predicts.
A. Lomonosov

Indeed it would, Pete!

__________________
“Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking. The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation.” - Albert Einstein

My Astronomy Site
My Geology Site

Eric. The question would then be. How would you distinguish between your typical 8-30 solar mass type 2, and one ~ 100,000 more massive. What would be the rise time? the light curve? is it still Ni powered? How about Al 27? If it's much further away, it will be the only thing seen there, and have an extraordinary redshift. Are we seeing them now? Interesting stuff.

__________________
A third rate theory forbids.
A second rate theory explains after the fact.
A first rate theory predicts.
A. Lomonosov

I imagine the life of that sucker would be pretty low.

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I wonder if there could be a mega engineering project to allow huge stars live longer. Have them ringed with smaller massive objects and spin rapidly?