Fragmentation of general relativistic quasi-toroidal polytropes

We investigate the role of rotational instabilities in the context of black hole formation in relativistic stars. In addition to the standard scenario - an axially symmetric dynamical instability forming a horizon at the star’s center

• the recently found low-$T\mathrm{/}\mathrm{\mid }W\mathrm{\mid }$ instabilities are shown to lead to fragmentation and off-center horizon formation in differentially rotating stars. This process might be an alternative pathway to produce SMBHs from supermassive stars with inefficient angular momentum transport.