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Little Red Dots (LRDs) are enigmatic, compact, red galaxies at high redshift, $z\sim 4$-$7$, discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope. Broad emission lines in the absence of X-ray and radio counterparts suggest that they host accreting…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-04-29 Riku Kuze , Kunihito Ioka , Kohta Murase , Shigeo S. Kimura , Kohei Inayoshi

Direct-collapse black holes (DCBHs) may be the seeds of the first quasars, over 200 of which have now been detected at $z > 6$ . The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) could detect DCBHs in the near infrared (NIR) at $z \lesssim 20$ and…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-07-06 Anton Vikaeus , Daniel J Whalen , Erik Zackrisson

Direct collapse black holes (DCBHs) are excellent candidates as seeds of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) observed at $z \gsim 6$. The formation of a DCBH requires a strong external radiation field to suppress $\rm H_2$ formation and…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2017-04-05 Bin Yue , Andrea Ferrara , Fabio Pacucci , Kuzuyuki Omukai

The direct collapse black hole (DCBH) model attempts to explain the observed number density of supermassive black holes in the early Universe by positing that they grew from seed black holes with masses of $10^{4}$-$10^{5} \: {\rm…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-10-19 Simon C. O. Glover

We investigate the environment in which direct-collapse black holes may form by analysing a cosmological, hydrodynamical simulation that is part of the First Billion Years project. This simulation includes the most relevant physical…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2017-04-25 Bhaskar Agarwal , Claudio Dalla Vecchia , Jarrett L. Johnson , Sadegh Khochfar , Jan-Pieter Paardekooper

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

A group of massive galaxies at redshifts of $z\gtrsim 7$ have been recently detected by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which were unexpected to form so early within the framework of standard Big Bang cosmology. In this work, we…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2024-08-13 Guan-Wen Yuan , Lei Lei , Yuan-Zhu Wang , Bo Wang , Yi-Ying Wang , Chao Chen , Zhao-Qiang Shen , Yi-Fu Cai , Yi-Zhong Fan

The first black hole seeds, formed when the Universe was younger than 500 Myr, are recognized to play an important role for the growth of early (z ~ 7) super-massive black holes. While progresses have been made in understanding their…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-04-05 Fabio Pacucci , Andrea Ferrara , Andrea Grazian , Fabrizio Fiore , Emanuele Giallongo , Simonetta Puccetti

We compile a sample of 83 Little Red Dots (LRDs) with JWST imaging and find that a substantial fraction ($\sim$43%, rising to $\gtrsim$85% for the most luminous LRDs) host one or more spatially offset, UV-bright companions at projected…

While supermassive black holes (BHs) are widely observed in the nearby and distant universe, their origin remains debated with two viable formation scenarios with light and heavy seeds. In the light seeding model, the first BHs form from…

JWST observations demonstrate that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) exist by redshifts $z \gtrsim 10$, providing further evidence for "direct collapse" black hole (BH) formation, whereby massive ($\sim 10^{3-5} M_{\odot}$) SMBH seeds are…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-06-12 Eric R. Coughlin , Mitchell C. Begelman

We investigate how supermassive black hole (SMBH) seeds form in the early Universe at the centers of ultralight dark matter (ULDM) halos. Focusing on the ULDM Jeans scale, we identify the critical conditions under which high-redshift…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-03-10 Dongsu Bak , Jae-Weon Lee

We propose that one of the sources in the recently detected system CR7 by Sobral et al. (2015) through spectro-photometric measurements at $z = 6.6$ harbors a direct collapse blackhole (DCBH). We argue that the LW radiation field required…

One of the most remarkable discoveries of JWST is a population of compact, red sources at z > 4, commonly referred to as Little Red Dots (LRDs). Spectroscopic identifications reported that most LRDs are active galactic nuclei (AGNs), which…

Growing the supermassive black holes (~10^9 Msun) that power the detected luminous, highest redshift quasars (z > 6) from light seeds - the remnants of the first stars - within ~ 1 Gyr of the Big Bang poses a timing challenge for growth…

Recent observations of the high-redshift universe have uncovered a significant number of active galactic nuclei, implying that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) would have to have been formed at much earlier times than expected. Direct…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-06-13 Yifan Lu , Zachary S. C. Picker , Alexander Kusenko

Little Red Dots (LRDs) are a new class of compact extragalactic objects, with a v-shaped optical spectral energy distribution breaking close to the Balmer break wavelength, and broad, typically exponentially-shaped lines. They are believed…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-10-09 G. P. Nikopoulos , D. Watson , A. Sneppen , V. Rusakov , K. E. Heintz , J. Witstok , G. Brammer

We use numerical simulations to explore whether direct collapse can lead to the formation of SMBH seeds at high-z. We follow the evolution of gas within DM halos of 2 x 10^8 Mo and 1 kpc. We adopt cosmological density profiles and…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-15 Jun-Hwan Choi , Isaac Shlosman , Mitchell C. Begelman

Overmassive black hole galaxies (OBGs) at redshifts $z \sim$ 10, or 450 Myr after the Big Bang, are one of the most puzzling discoveries by the James Webb Space Telescope to date because they formed by such early epochs and their black-hole…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-05-05 Muhammad A. Latif , Daniel J. Whalen , Sadegh Khochfar , Fergus Cullen

Recent observations have revealed a unique class of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), termed little red dots (LRDs). These objects are hypothesized to be powered by massive black holes rapidly accreting in dense gaseous environments.…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-05-22 Shinsuke Takasao , Kohei Inayoshi