@article{17541,
  abstract     = {In recent years, the discovery of massive quasars at z~7 has provided a striking challenge to our understanding of the origin and growth of supermassive black holes in the early Universe. Mounting observational and theoretical evidence indicates the viability of massive seeds, formed by the collapse of supermassive stars, as a progenitor model for such early, massive accreting black holes. Although considerable progress has been made in our theoretical understanding, many questions remain regarding how (and how often) such objects may form, how they live and die, and how next generation observatories may yield new insight into the origin of these primordial titans. This review focusses on our present understanding of this remarkable formation scenario, based on discussions held at the Monash Prato Centre from November 20--24, 2017, during the workshop "Titans of the Early Universe: The Origin of the First Supermassive Black Holes."},
  author       = {Woods, Tyrone E. and Agarwal, Bhaskar and Bromm, Volker and Bunker, Andrew and Chen, Ke-Jung and Chon, Sunmyon and Ferrara, Andrea and Glover, Simon C. O. and Haemmerlé, Lionel and Haiman, Zoltán and Hartwig, Tilman and Heger, Alexander and Hirano, Shingo and Hosokawa, Takashi and Inayoshi, Kohei and Klessen, Ralf S. and Kobayashi, Chiaki and Koliopanos, Filippos and Latif, Muhammad A. and Li, Yuexing and Mayer, Lucio and Mezcua, Mar and Natarajan, Priyamvada and Pacucci, Fabio and Rees, Martin J. and Regan, John A. and Sakurai, Yuya and Salvadori, Stefania and Schneider, Raffaella and Surace, Marco and Tanaka, Takamitsu L. and Whalen, Daniel J. and Yoshida, Naoki},
  issn         = {1323-3580},
  journal      = {Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia},
  publisher    = {Cambridge University Press},
  title        = {{Titans of the early universe: The prato statement on the origin of the first supermassive black holes}},
  doi          = {10.1017/pasa.2019.14},
  volume       = {36},
  year         = {2019},
}