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How many routes are there to the formation of a black hole? A high-mass star can evolve off the main sequence, then end up going supernova and leaving behind a black-hole remnant. In this thread https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=3062281 , Radrook and Jim Graber pointed out that there may be mechanisms of collapse that don't involve a supernova. Jim suggested that I search on arxiv.org for "accretion induced collapse," and indeed there were about a gazillion hits. Can anyone sort this out at all? Is anything known about the possible mechanisms of formation of supermassive black holes? At lower masses, is there an accretion/collapse mechanism and a separate collision mechanism?