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Supermassive black hole formation in the initial collapse of axion dark matter

Pierre Sikivie and Yuxin Zhao

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 063039 – Published 20 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/m461-xxqg

Abstract

Axion dark matter thermalizes by gravitational self-interactions and forms a Bose-Einstein condensate. We show that the rethermalization of the axion fluid during the initial collapse of large scale overdensities near cosmic dawn transports angular momentum outward sufficiently fast that black holes form with masses ranging from approximately 105 to a few times 1010M⊙. This conclusion holds for QCD axions and for axionlike particles of mass larger than 10−16  eV/c2.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 063039– Published 20 March, 2026
  • Received 15 July 2024
  • Accepted 30 January 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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