Host Galaxy UV Emission and Dust Reddening in Little Red Dots

Little Red Dots (LRDs) have been the subject of extensive analysis to place them within the context of galaxy and black hole evolution. Despite several proposed scenarios for the nature of the rest optical emission in LRDs, our understanding of the UV emission remains a matter of debate. Here, we aim to study the origin of the UV emission in LRDs. We conduct emission-line and continuum fitting analysis of thirteen LRDs using a combination of NIRSpec PRISM and medium-resolution G235M and G395M spectroscopy. We isolate and analyze the narrow-line emission arising from larger physical scales in LRDs. We observe that the narrow-line Balmer decrements are typically greater than those predicted for case B recombination and broadly correlated with both the UV slope and the break strength, providing clear evidence that the UV emission originates from galaxy scales and its slope is significantly affected by dust reddening. SED fitting analysis further shows that the UV continuum of LRDs is consistent with a dust attenuated stellar template. Finally, we show through a comparison of the UV slope and the Balmer break strength, that LRDs can be further divided based on break strength, such that the canonical LRD spectral shape (strong break strength (> 3) and flat rest UV continuum) represents the most extreme sub-population. Our results imply that for most LRDs, the UV emission originates primarily from the young host galaxy, and that the characteristic optical emission may be due to a combination of dust reddening and intrinsically red accretion processes.