Even bigger ...

Super massive black holes are humongous with some giants the equivalent of mass 10 billions times greater than that of the sun but researchers are conjecturing SLAB/Stupendously Large Black Holes of a size considered not possible until now.

A recent study suggests the possible existence of 'stupendously large black holes' or SLABS, even larger than the supermassive black holes already observed in the centers of galaxies.

The research, led by Queen Mary Emeritus Professor Bernard Carr in the School of Physics and Astronomy, together with F. Kühnel (Münich) and L. Visinelli (Frascati), investigated how these SLABs could form and potential limits to their size.

The key to the possible existence of SLABs centers on the flexibility of source material these entities may have devoured in the distant past.

In this study, the researchers propose another possibility for how SMBHs could form, which might evade this limit. They suggest that such SLABs could be 'primordial," forming in the early Universe, and well before galaxies.

As 'primordial' black holes don't form from a collapsing star, they could have a wide range of masses, including very small and stupendously large ones.

The search is on.