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Little red dots as embryos of active galactic nuclei

Published 12 Nov 2025 in astro-ph.GA | (2511.09278v1)

Abstract: As an unprecedented large population in the early universe, the JWST-discovered little red dots (LRDs) have garnered much attention for formation of massive black holes and galaxies, but their nature remains a mystery. The LRDs appearing as ``Chimeras" like both active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and galaxies have stimulated renewed interest in the roadmap of central massive black hole (cMBH) formation in AGNs. In this paper, we suggest that the LRDs contain M10<sup>6MM_{\bullet}\lesssim 10<sup>6\,M_{\odot} cMBHs as demonstrated by the Sołtan argument and there is a large population of stellar-mass black holes (sMBHs with total mass of M<em>m</em>\mathscr{M}<em>{m</em>{\bullet}}) embedded inside cMBH accretion disks (cMBH-disk) as motivated by anomalous reverberations of broad Hββ line in local AGNs. This embryo structure of LRDs ($M_{\bullet}&lt;\mathscr{M}<em>{m</em>{\bullet}}$) is formed as a consequence of gravitational collapse of primordial clouds. In this Chimera, accretion onto sMBHs powers the rest-frame optical continuum of the LRDs but the UV continuum is jointly contributed by slim parts of the cMBH-disks and nuclear starbursts in the core of collapsing clouds governing the appearance of the observed V-shaped spectral energy distributions (SEDs). Outflowing clumped-envelopes are unavoidably formed by radiation pressure leading to absorption features of the Balmer lines. The present model works very well for LRDs' SEDs and avoids the issues of overly massive cMBHs. Evolution of LRDs is briefly discussed including gravitational waves.

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