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Autor principal: Bellovary, Jillian
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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Acceso en línea:https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.03309
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author Bellovary, Jillian
author_facet Bellovary, Jillian
contents I hypothesize a physical explanation for the "Little Red Dots" (LRDs) discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The first star formation in the universe occurs in dense clusters, some of which may undergo runaway collapse and form an intermediate mass black hole. This process would appear as a very dense stellar system, with recurring tidal disruption events (TDEs) as stellar material is accreted by the black hole. Such a system would be compact, UV-emitting, and exhibit broad H-alpha emission. If runaway collapse is the primary mechanism for forming massive black hole seeds, this process could be fairly common and explain the large volume densities of LRDs. In order to match the predicted number density of runaway collapse clusters, the tidal disruption rate must be on the order of 10^-4 per year. A top-heavy stellar initial mass function may be required to match observations without exceeding the predicted LambdaCDM mass function. The TDE LRD hypothesis can be verified with followup JWST observations looking for TDE-like variability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_03309
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Little Red Dots are Tidal Disruption Events in Runaway-Collapsing Clusters
Bellovary, Jillian
Astrophysics of Galaxies
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
I hypothesize a physical explanation for the "Little Red Dots" (LRDs) discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The first star formation in the universe occurs in dense clusters, some of which may undergo runaway collapse and form an intermediate mass black hole. This process would appear as a very dense stellar system, with recurring tidal disruption events (TDEs) as stellar material is accreted by the black hole. Such a system would be compact, UV-emitting, and exhibit broad H-alpha emission. If runaway collapse is the primary mechanism for forming massive black hole seeds, this process could be fairly common and explain the large volume densities of LRDs. In order to match the predicted number density of runaway collapse clusters, the tidal disruption rate must be on the order of 10^-4 per year. A top-heavy stellar initial mass function may be required to match observations without exceeding the predicted LambdaCDM mass function. The TDE LRD hypothesis can be verified with followup JWST observations looking for TDE-like variability.
title Little Red Dots are Tidal Disruption Events in Runaway-Collapsing Clusters
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.03309