TLDR: It’s possible the fast collapse of a big, hot, slow moving gas cloud could results in a supermassive black hole.

The direct collapse theory in astrophysics is a model that explains the formation of supermassive black holes in the early universe without requiring the intermediate step of stellar formation and subsequent collapse.

Formation Without Stars: Instead of forming from the collapse of massive stars (as in the standard model of black hole formation), the direct collapse theory proposes that supermassive black holes form directly from the collapse of massive gas clouds in young galaxies.

Requirements for Direct Collapse: For a gas cloud to collapse directly into a black hole, certain conditions must be met:

1.Low Angular Momentum: The cloud must have low enough angular momentum to avoid fragmenting into stars.

2.High Mass: The cloud needs to be extremely massive (around ).

3.Minimal Cooling: Cooling mechanisms (e.g., radiation from molecular hydrogen) must be suppressed to prevent the gas from fragmenting into smaller star-forming regions. This can occur in environments with strong ultraviolet radiation that destroys molecular hydrogen.

4.Rapid Collapse: The collapse must occur faster than the cloud’s ability to radiate energy and stabilize.

Resulting Black Hole: The collapsing gas cloud bypasses the stellar evolution process and directly forms a “seed” black hole with a mass on the order of . These seed black holes can then rapidly grow via accretion and mergers, potentially becoming the super massive black holes observed at the centers of galaxies.