The Origin and Detection of High-Redshift Supermassive Black Holes

Abstract

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are common in local galactic nuclei, and SMBHs as massive as several billion solar masses already exist at redshift z=6. These earliest SMBHs may arise by the combination of Eddington-limited growth and mergers of stellar-mass seed BHs left behind by the first generation of metal-free stars, or by the rapid direct collapse of gas in rare special environments where the gas can avoid fragmenting into stars. In this contribution, I review these two competing scenarios. I also briefly mention some more exotic ideas and how the different models may be distinguished in the future by LISA and other instruments.