Overmassive black holes and little red dots naturally form in simulations

arXiv:2601.04955 · astro-ph.GA, astro-ph.CO, astro-ph.SR · Submitted 2026-01-08 · Read on arXiv

astro-ph.GA, astro-ph.CO, astro-ph.SR

Submitted: 2026-01-08

Updated: 2026-09-18

Comments: Published in Nature 657, 621--625 (2026); 14 figures

Journal ref: Nature 657, 621--625 (2026)

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10985-8

License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/

Terminology

• Little Red Dots — 15× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• AGN — 9× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Robustness — 4× in this paper · explained in 5 episodes
• Abundance — 3× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Core — 3× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Little Red Dots (LRDs) — 3× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• Accretion Flows — 2× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Metallicity — 2× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• Trace — 2× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Accretion Physics — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Adam — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Laser Interferometer Space Antenna — 1× in this paper
• N-body simulations — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Spectral Signature — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes

Sources

• A JWST/NIRSpec First Census of Broad-Line AGNs at z=4-7: Detection of 10 Faint AGNs with M_BH~10^6-10^8 M_sun and Their Host Galaxy Properties
• GA-NIFS: A massive black hole in a low-metallicity AGN at $z\sim5.55$ revealed by JWST/NIRSpec IFS
• JADES. The diverse population of infant Black Holes at 4<z<11: merging, tiny, poor, but mighty
• A small and vigorous black hole in the early Universe
• Broad-Line AGN at 3.5<z<6: The Black Hole Mass Function and a Connection with Little Red Dots
• Little Red Dots: an abundant population of faint AGN at z~5 revealed by the EIGER and FRESCO JWST surveys
• RUBIES: A Spectroscopic Census of Little Red Dots; All V-Shaped Point Sources Have Broad Lines
• Little red dots as young supermassive black holes in dense ionized cocoons
• A "Black Hole Star" Reveals the Remarkable Gas-Enshrouded Hearts of the Little Red Dots
• RUBIES: a complete census of the bright and red distant Universe with JWST/NIRSpec
• Sustained super-Eddington accretion in high-redshift quasars
• Episodic super-Eddington accretion as a clue to Overmassive Black Holes in the early Universe
• Little Red Dots and their Progenitors from Direct Collapse Black Holes
• Environmental Evidence for Overly Massive Black Holes in Low Mass Galaxies and a Black Hole - Halo Mass Relation at $z \sim 5$
• High-redshift AGN population in radiation-hydrodynamics simulations
• E pur si muove: Galiliean-invariant cosmological hydrodynamical simulations on a moving mesh
• A Semi-analytic Framework of Population III and Subsequent Galaxy Formation on Cosmological N-body Simulations
• Radiation hydrodynamics simulations of the formation of direct-collapse supermassive stellar systems
• Formation of massive black holes in rapidly growing pre-galactic gas clouds
• The Formation of Very Massive Stars in Early Galaxies and Implications for Intermediate Mass Black Holes

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