In his new paper, Professor Jonathan Tan, an astrophysicist on the College of Virginia and the Chalmers College of Expertise, proposes that Inhabitants III.1 supermassive stars had been progenitors of supermassive black holes within the early Universe; excessive power photons from the celebs ionized the encircling hydrogen gasoline far out into the pristine intergalactic medium, finally engulfing a area that’s thousands and thousands of sunshine years in dimension; all supermassive black holes shaped on this approach resulting in flash ionization of all of house and ending the so-called ‘Darkish Ages’ of the Universe.
This artist’s impression reveals a area of Inhabitants III stars as they might have appeared a mere 100 million years after the Massive Bang. Picture credit score: NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva / Spaceengine.
Supermassive black holes lurk within the facilities of most massive galaxies, together with our personal Milky Approach and are sometimes thousands and thousands and even billions of occasions extra huge than the Solar.
Their formation has been a lot debated, particularly because the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Area Telescope has been discovering many such black holes that exist distant and which have existed as far again in time because the daybreak of the Universe.
Often called ‘Pop III.1,’ Professor Tan’s principle proposes that each one supermassive black holes kind because the remnants of the very first, so-called Population III.1 stars, the very first stars within the Universe which grew to huge sizes below the affect of power from a course of referred to as darkish matter annihilation, and the idea has predicted lots of the Webb’s latest findings.
In his paper, he outlines one other prediction of the idea that would shed new gentle on the origins of the Universe.
“Our mannequin requires that the supermassive star progenitors of the black holes quickly ionized the hydrogen gasoline within the Universe, asserting their start with shiny flashes that crammed all of house,” Professor Tan mentioned.
“Intriguingly this further part of ionization, occurring a lot sooner than that powered by regular galaxies, might assist resolve some latest conundrums and tensions which have arisen in cosmology, together with the Hubble Pressure, Dynamic Darkish Vitality and desire for Destructive Neutrino Lots, all of which problem the usual mannequin of the Universe.”
“It’s a connection we didn’t anticipate when creating the Pop III.1 mannequin, however it might show profoundly essential.”
“Professor Tan has developed a chic mannequin that would clarify a two-stage strategy of stellar start and ionization within the early Universe,” mentioned College Faculty London’s Professor Richard Ellis, one of many world’s main observational cosmologists.
“It’s doable the very first stars shaped in a quick, sensible flash, then vanished — that means what we now see with Webb could also be simply the second wave. The Universe, it appears, nonetheless holds surprises.”
Professor Tan’s paper shall be revealed within the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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Jonathan C. Tan. 2025. Flash Ionization of the Early Universe by Pop III.1 Supermassive Stars. ApJL, in press; arXiv: 2506.18490
