Stability of quasi-stars with accretion disks and jets

Determine whether a quasi-star can remain stable for an extended duration when the central black hole undergoes hyper-accretion via an angular-momentum-supported accretion disk that may launch powerful outflows and jets, and, if stability is possible, characterize the resulting observational signatures of such quasi-stars.

Background

The paper models the growth of black holes embedded within quasi-stars using MESA, exploring inner boundary conditions and wind-induced mass loss. In the concluding section, the authors highlight that hyper-accretion onto black holes is known to drive strong outflows and jets, and that angular momentum in the infalling gas can form an accretion disk around the central black hole.

They explicitly note that it is unknown whether a quasi-star remains stable under these jet/outflow conditions and what the associated observational signatures would be. Resolving this uncertainty is critical for assessing quasi-stars as progenitors of supermassive black holes and for interpreting JWST observations of compact, red sources (LRDs) potentially linked to quasi-stars.

References

Whether a quasi-star can remain stable over an extended period under such circumstances—and, if so, what its resulting observational signatures might be—remains an open question for future study.

— The Growth of the Central Black Holes in Quasi-stars  (2510.18301 - Hassan et al., 21 Oct 2025) in Section 6 (Summary and future directions)

However, quasi-stars have not been simulated \citep[although, see the MESA calculations by][]{hassan_2026} and their stability remains unknown.

— Little Red Dots As Super-Eddington Fountain Flows  (2609.20920 - Kaaz et al., 17 Sep 2026) in Section 5.2, “Supermassive and quasi-stars”