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Little red dots (LRDs) are a newly identified class of broad-line active galactic nuclei (AGN) with a distinctive v-shape spectrum characterized by red optical and blue UV continuum emission. Their high abundance at redshifts of $z\sim6-8$…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-04-29 Kohei Inayoshi , Jinyi Shangguan , Xian Chen , Luis C. Ho , Zoltan Haiman

JWST has revealed a new high-redshift population called little red dots (LRDs). Since LRDs may be in the early phase of black hole growth, identifying them in the early universe is crucial for understanding the formation of the first…

Observations of high-redshift quasars indicate that super massive black holes (SMBHs) with masses greater than ${\sim}10^9~M_\odot$ were assembled within the first billion years after the Big Bang. It is unclear how such massive black holes…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-09-26 Eli Visbal , Zoltan Haiman

Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have identified an abundant population of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) already in place during the first few hundred million years of cosmic history. Most of them appear…

Observational constraints on the birth and early evolution of massive black holes (BHs) come from two extreme regimes. At high redshift, quasars signal the rapid growth of billion-solar-mass BHs and indicate that these objects began…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-03-15 Amy Reines , Andrea Comastri

Little Red Dots, discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope, are hypothesized to be active galactic nuclei containing a supermassive black hole, possibly surrounded by a dense stellar cluster, large amounts of gas, and likely by a…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-10-27 Konstantinos Kritos , Joseph Silk

JWST has revealed a population of red, compact, high-redshift (${z\sim3-10}$) objects referred to as ``Little Red Dots'' (LRDs). These objects exhibit unusual spectral features reminiscent of stellar spectra with blackbody-like SEDs, large…

We investigate the growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at high redshift ($z \ge 10$) from a combination of dark matter capture, black-hole mergers, and gas accretion. It has previously been shown that SMBHs can form by $z \approx 10$…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-05-14 Andrew Imai , Grant J. Mathews , Guobao Tang , Brian Zhang

One of the most puzzling discoveries by JWST is the population of high-redshift, red, and compact galaxies dubbed little red dots (LRDs). Based on broad-line diagnostics, these galaxies have been argued to host accreting $10^7-10^8$…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-07-30 Andrea Sacchi , Akos Bogdan

Recent space-based observations discovered several unusual objects, exhibiting similar properties, at redshifts $z\gtrsim 10$. Among them is the UHZ1 system at $z=10.1$, containing $\sim 10^8M_\odot$ in stars, with a similarly massive…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2026-01-15 Alexander Kashlinsky , Fernando Atrio-Barandela , Diego Martín-González

The birth of seeds of massive black holes (BHs) and nascent galaxies at cosmic dawn takes place in dense gaseous environments, which play a crucial role in shaping their coevolution and radiation spectra. We investigate gas accretion during…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-04-29 Kohei Inayoshi , Kohta Murase , Kazumi Kashiyama

We test whether ``little red dots'' (LRDs) are the dust-reddened, high-inclination counterparts of bluer compact broad-line active galactic nuclei, here referred to as ``little blue dots'' (LBDs), by modeling their relative number densities…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-05-07 Piero Madau , Roberto Maiolino

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has unveiled a population of enigmatic, compact sources at high redshift known as ``Little Red Dots'' (LRDs), whose physical nature remains a subject of intense debate. Concurrently, the rapid assembly…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-01-01 Devesh Nandal , Abraham Loeb

The population of the Little Red Dots (LRDs) may represent a key phase of supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth. A cocoon of dense excited gas is emerging as key component to explain the most striking properties of LRDs, such as strong…

Tracking the evolution of high redshift seed black hole masses to late times, we examine the observable signatures today. These massive initial black hole seeds form at extremely high redshifts from the direct collapse of pre-galactic gas…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2011-04-27 Priyamvada Natarajan

We address the origin of the Little Red Dots (LRDs) seen by JWST at cosmic morning ($z \!=\! 4 \!-\! 8$) as compact stellar systems with over-massive black holes (BHs). We propose that LRDs form naturally after feedback-free starbursts…

Observations of high-redshift quasars at z>6 imply that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) with masses over a billion solar masses were in place less than 1 Gyr after the Big Bang. If these SMBHs assembled from "seed" BHs left behind by the…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-05 Takamitsu Tanaka , Rosalba Perna , Zoltán Haiman

The enigmatic Little Red Dots (LRDs) discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) exhibit properties challenging their interpretation as common galaxies or Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Understanding their nature is key to placing…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-04-01 Diego Herrero-Carrión , Daniele Spinoso , David Izquierdo-Villalba , Tong Su , Silvia Bonoli , Pablo Renard