Formation of black holes from rapidly accreting supermassive stars is not trivial: Simulations of thermonuclear pulsations and explosions

The formation of supermassive black holes and their progenitors is an outstanding problem in astrophysics. The authors examine one progenitor scenario where these black holes form from the unstable collapse of supermassive stars. Running both hydrostatic and hydrodynamic calculations that account for the effects of general relativity, accretion and nuclear burning, they show that for much of parameter space, these accreting supermassive stars do not collapse, but rather explode dues to nuclear energy.