Collapse of a Rotating Supermassive Star to a Supermassive Black Hole: Fully Relativistic Simulations

We follow the collapse in axisymmetry of a uniformly rotating, supermassive star (SMS) to a supermassive black hole in full general relativity. The initial SMS of arbitrary mass M is marginally unstable to radial collapse and rotates at the mass-shedding limit. The collapse proceeds homologously early on and results in the appearance of an apparent horizon at the center. Although our integration terminates before final equilibrium is achieved, we determine that the final black hole will contain about 90% of the total mass of the system and will have a spin parameter J / M 2 ~ 0.75. The remaining gas forms a rotating disk about the nascent hole.