Exploring active galactic nuclei and little red dots with the Obelisk simulation
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 them being named “little red dots”. In this paper, we develop a detailed framework to estimate the photometry of AGNs embedded in galaxies extracted from the O BELISK 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 AGNs we can explain the shape of the cLRD SED as long as galaxies host a sufficiently luminous AGN that is neither overly attenuated nor too little attenuated. When attenuation is too low or too high, AGNs 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 ones, and/or high ratios between the black hole and the stellar mass.
Authors
- Chi An Dong-Páez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8590-4409)
- Yin-Zhe Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8108-0986)
- Alessandro Lupi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6106-7821)
- R. Schneider
- Jenny E. Greene (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5612-3427)
- Mélanie Habouzit (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4750-0187)
- P. Dayal
- Maxime Trebitsch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6849-5375)
- Yohan Dubois (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0225-6387)
- Ricarda S. Beckmann
- Marta Volonteri (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3216-1322)
Institutions
- University of Insubria (IT)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- University of Groningen (NL)
- Princeton University (US)
- Heidelberg University (DE)
- Astronomical Observatory of Rome (IT)
- Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori di Pavia (IT)
- Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris (FR)
- Sorbonne Université (FR)
- Royal Observatory (GB)
- Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (DE)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Milano Bicocca (IT)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Roma I (IT)
- Sapienza University of Rome (IT)
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Published
- 2025-02-07
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202451963
- Citations
- 14
- Primary Topic
- Astronomical Observations and Instrumentation
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 18.69
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- European Commission
- Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
- Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe AISBL
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
- Grand Équipement National De Calcul Intensif
- Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara