X-Ray View of Little Red Dots: Do They Host Supermassive Black Holes?
Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian · Masaryk University · +4 more institutions
Abstract
Abstract The discovery of Little Red Dots (LRDs)—a population of compact, high-redshift, dust-reddened galaxies—is one of the most surprising results from JWST. However, the nature of LRDs is still debated: does the near-infrared emission originate from accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs), or intense star formation? In this work, we utilize ultra-deep Chandra observations and study LRDs residing behind the lensing galaxy cluster, A2744. We probe the X-ray emission from individual galaxies but find that they remain undetected and provide SMBH mass upper limits of ≲(1.5–16) × 10 6 M ⊙ assuming Eddington limited accretion. To increase the signal-to-noise ratios, we conduct a stacking analysis of the full…
Citation impact
- FWCI
- 33.57
- Percentile
- 100%
- References
- 43
Authors
5Topics & keywords
- Physics
- Astrophysics
- Supermassive black hole
- Galaxy
- Astronomy
- Stellar mass
- Redshift
- Eddington luminosity