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Related papers: Little Red Dots as Globular Clusters in Formation

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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

Among the most remarkable results from JWST is the discovery of abundant, compact, and very red sources in the early Universe known as "Little Red Dots" (LRDs). The relative degree to which starlight and active galactic nuclei (AGN) drive…

"Little red dots" (LRDs) represent a new population of astronomical objects uncovered by JWST whose nature remains debated. Although many LRDs are suspected as active galactic nuclei (AGN), they show little variability on days-years…

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

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has uncovered a new population of compact objects that show a unique V-shaped spectral energy distribution (SED) in the UV and optical wavelength range. These so-called "little red dots" (LRDs) often…

Little red dots (LRDs) are a population of red, compact objects discovered by JWST at $z>4$. At $4<z<8$, they are roughly 100 times more abundant than UV-selected quasars. However, their number density is uncertain at $z<4$ due to the small…

One of the most surprising results of early James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations is the discovery of an abundance of red, compact, broad-line objects dubbed "little red dots" (LRDs) at $z>4$. Their spatial density…

We argue that the "Little Red Dots" (LRDs) discovered with the James Webb Space Telescope are quasi-stars in their late stages of evolution. Quasi-stars are hypothetical objects predicted to form following the core collapse of supermassive…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-12-25 Mitchell C. Begelman , Jason Dexter

JWST observations have identified a class of enigmatic sources known as "Little Red Dots" (LRDs). These have been interpreted as a distinct class of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and host galaxies, potentially involving "quasi-stars" or…

Little red dots (LRDs), high-redshift, compact, red objects with V-shaped spectra, are one of the most exciting and perplexing discoveries made by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). While the simplest explanation for LRDs is that they…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-09-05 Amy Secunda , Rachel S. Somerville , Yan-Fei Jiang , Jenny E. Greene , Lukas J. Furtak , Adi Zitrin

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has uncovered a new population of candidate broad-line AGN emerging in the early Universe, named ''little red dots'' (LRDs) because of their compactness and red colors at optical wavelengths. LRDs…

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has uncovered many compact galaxies at high redshift with broad hydrogen and helium lines, including the enigmatic population of little red dots (LRDs). The nature of these galaxies is debated and is…

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

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…

The James Webb Space Telescope has detected massive black holes (BHs) with masses of $\sim 10^{6-8}~M_\odot$ within the first billion years of the universe. One of the remarkable findings is the identification of "Little Red Dots" (LRDs), a…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-07-17 Kohei Inayoshi

Recently, a new population of compact, high-redshift (z>7) galaxies appeared as little red dots (LRDs) in deep JWST observations. The latest spectroscopic data indicates that these galaxies contain an evolved stellar population, reflecting…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2024-07-19 Abraham Loeb

Context. One of the most important discoveries by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the unexpected existence in the Early Universe (z > 4) of very large quantities of "Little Red Dots" (LRDs), compact luminous red galaxies of…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-03-18 L. F. Rodriguez , I. F. Mirabel