A Jetted Wandering Massive Black Hole Candidate in a Dwarf Galaxy
Abstract
Wandering massive black holes (MBHs) are thought to form through gravitational recoil or galaxy mergers, but observational confirmation of their displacement in dwarf galaxies, critical laboratories for early-universe SMBH seeding, remains scarce. Using multi-epoch very long baseline interferometry (VLBI), we identify a displaced MBH in the dwarf galaxy MaNGA 12772-12704, located 0.94 kilo-parsec from its optical center. The source exhibits unambiguous signatures of an accreting MBH: a brightness temperature exceeding K, a parsec-scale jet, and flux density variability over a 30-year baseline. This system provides the first robust evidence that dynamical black hole interactions predicted in hierarchical galaxy evolution occur even in low-mass hosts. The discovery challenges models requiring centralized gas reservoirs for MBH growth and directly informs high-redshift seeding scenarios.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2508.17293,
title = {A Jetted Wandering Massive Black Hole Candidate in a Dwarf Galaxy},
author = {Yuanqi Liu and Tao An and Mar Mezcua and Yingkang Zhang and Ailing Wang and Jun Yang and Xiaopeng Cheng},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.17293},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
6 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Science Bulletin