Exploring Active Galactic Nuclei and Little Red Dots with the Obelisk simulation

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Volonteri, M., Trebitsch, M., Greene, J. E., Dubois, Y., Dong-Paez, C. -A., Habouzit, M., Lupi, A., Ma, Y., Beckmann, R. S., Dayal, P., Schneider, R.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866915182078328832
author Volonteri, M.
Trebitsch, M.
Greene, J. E.
Dubois, Y.
Dong-Paez, C. -A.
Habouzit, M.
Lupi, A.
Ma, Y.
Beckmann, R. S.
Dayal, P.
Schneider, R.
author_facet Volonteri, M.
Trebitsch, M.
Greene, J. E.
Dubois, Y.
Dong-Paez, C. -A.
Habouzit, M.
Lupi, A.
Ma, Y.
Beckmann, R. S.
Dayal, P.
Schneider, R.
contents The James Webb Space telescope has discovered an abundant population of broad line emitters, typical signposts for Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Many of these sources have red colors and a compact appearance that has led to naming them `Little Red Dots'. In this paper we develop a detailed framework to estimate the photometry of AGN embedded in galaxies extracted from the \Obelisk{} cosmological simulation to understand the properties of color-selected Little Red Dots (cLRDs) in the context of the full AGN and massive black hole population. We find that using realistic spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and attenuation for AGN we can explain the shape of the cLRD SED as long as galaxies host a sufficiently luminous AGN that is not too much or too little attenuated. When attenuation is too low or too high, AGN do not enter the cLRD selection, because the AGN dominates over the host galaxy too much in blue filters, or it does not contribute to photometry anywhere, respectively. cLRDs are also characterized by high Eddington ratios, possibility super-Eddington, and/or high ratios between black hole and stellar mass.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_12854
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Exploring Active Galactic Nuclei and Little Red Dots with the Obelisk simulation
Volonteri, M.
Trebitsch, M.
Greene, J. E.
Dubois, Y.
Dong-Paez, C. -A.
Habouzit, M.
Lupi, A.
Ma, Y.
Beckmann, R. S.
Dayal, P.
Schneider, R.
Astrophysics of Galaxies
The James Webb Space telescope has discovered an abundant population of broad line emitters, typical signposts for Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Many of these sources have red colors and a compact appearance that has led to naming them `Little Red Dots'. In this paper we develop a detailed framework to estimate the photometry of AGN embedded in galaxies extracted from the \Obelisk{} cosmological simulation to understand the properties of color-selected Little Red Dots (cLRDs) in the context of the full AGN and massive black hole population. We find that using realistic spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and attenuation for AGN we can explain the shape of the cLRD SED as long as galaxies host a sufficiently luminous AGN that is not too much or too little attenuated. When attenuation is too low or too high, AGN do not enter the cLRD selection, because the AGN dominates over the host galaxy too much in blue filters, or it does not contribute to photometry anywhere, respectively. cLRDs are also characterized by high Eddington ratios, possibility super-Eddington, and/or high ratios between black hole and stellar mass.
title Exploring Active Galactic Nuclei and Little Red Dots with the Obelisk simulation
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.12854