A Spectral Framework for Testing the Quasi-Star Hypothesis in Little Red Dots I: Weighing LRDs by Their Super-Eddington Luminosity Ratios---No Signs of Overmassive Black Holes
astro-ph.GA, astro-ph.CO
Submitted: 2026-09-08
Updated: 2026-09-24
Comments: 29 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables, submitted to ApJ
Code: https://github.com/o-curtis/prospector-tlusty
License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
Terminology
Sources
- Can Little Red Dots Contribute To The Early Universe Cosmic Dust Budget?
- Little Red Dots host Black Hole Stars: A unified family of gas-reddened AGN revealed by JWST/NIRSpec spectroscopy
- The quasi-star model for Little Red Dots: potential and challenges
- TLUSTY and SYNSPEC Users's Guide IV: Upgraded Versions 208 and 54
- Holes in the BH$^\star$? AGN signatures in the FUV spectrum of a black-hole dominated Little Red Dot at $z=7.04$
- An (in)complete NIRSpec census of Balmer absorption in Type 1 AGN -- radiation-driven outflows in little red dots, quasars and variable stars
- Little Red Dots at z~2 in EIGER reveal a gentle decline with respect to their peak number density at z~5
- (LRDs)$^2$: The Low-ReDshift Little Red Dots Survey. II. DESI DR1 Sample
- Synthetic Spectral Library of Optically Thick Atmospheres for Little Red Dots
- Optically Thick Outflow Driven by Supercritical Accretion May Explain Little Red Dots
- No evolution in the number density of little red dots from cosmic dawn to cosmic noon
- Little Red Dots as Obscured Little Blue Dots: A Super-Eddington Unification Model
- The Engine and its Flows: Little Red Dot spectra are shaped by the column densities of their gas envelopes
- Little Red Dots as Intermediate Mass, Super-Eddington Engines: Insights from Type IIn Supernovae and The 1837-1856 Great Eruption of eta Carinae
- NEXUS: Abundance, Environments, and Spectral Diversity of Little Red Dots from the NIRSpec MSA Sample
- A new sample of Little Red Dots at $z<0.45$ in DESI DR1: Broad Balmer lines, low ionization spectrum and no variability
- Supermassive stars with embedded stellar black hole cores: dense assembling star clusters as faint multiple Little Red Dot systems
- A quasi-star is born: formation and evolution of accreting quasi-stars as a pathway to Little Red Dots at non-zero metallicity
- Constraints on the Gas Geometry Surrounding Little Red Dots through Narrow-Line Diagnostics
- NEXUS: Spectral Variability of Little Red Dots and Blue Active Galactic Nuclei at 2 z 6
Related papers
- Apparent Stability in Self-Gravitating Turbulence and the Evolution of Molecular Clouds
- Two sets of potential-density basis pairs for the study of radial perturbations in collisionless spherical stellar systems
- Constraining reionization-era Ly alpha escape with JELS-MUSE: a highly complete H alpha-selected sample at z about6.1
- Deriving volume density profiles of filaments from observed surface densities
- Little Red Dots and Supermassive Black Hole Seed Formation in Ultralight Dark Matter Halos
- MEGATRON: how the first stars can create an iron metallicity plateau in the smallest dwarf galaxies