A Black Hole Is Born: 3D General-relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Simulation of Black Hole Formation from Core Collapse

We present the first three-dimensional, fully general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (3D GRMHD) simulation of a black hole (BH) formed from the collapsed core of a massive star. The ability to self-consistently capture the birth of a compact remnant in 3D is crucial for modeling natal BH properties (including masses, spins, and kicks), which are of particular interest in the era of gravitational-wave astronomy. However, such simulations have remained elusive due to extreme computational challenges and demands. We employ the GPU-accelerated dynamical-spacetime GRMHD code GRaM-X to follow the collapse, core bounce, shock propagation, and eventual BH formation of a massive stellar progenitor in full 3D. We initialize our simulation by mapping a one-dimensional (1D) model of a star with a zero-age-main-sequence mass of 45 M ⊙ to 3D. We use the core rotation velocity expected from stellar evolution modeling and a relatively weak dipolar magnetic field. The collapsing core drives a shock that reaches a maximum radius of roughly 170 km before stalling and does not lead to a successful explosion. The protoneutron star accretes matter before collapsing to form a BH t BH ≈ 325 ms after core bounce. The time of BH formation and initial BH mass are remarkably similar to those obtained with GR1D , a 1D general-relativistic neutrino-hydrodynamics code, to which we compare our results. We track the horizon of the newborn BH after formation and calculate a steady kick velocity of v kick ≈ 72 km s − 1 and a mass of M BH ≈ 2.62 M ⊙ , which is still rising at the end of the simulation.