A little red dot at z = 7.3 within a large galaxy overdensity
The nature of ‘little red dots’ and their relation to other forms of accreting supermassive black holes remain an open question. Here we report the discovery of a little red dot at z = 7.3. It is attenuated by moderate amounts of dust, AV = 2.79 mag, and has an intrinsic bolometric luminosity of 104...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article (Journal) |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
17 September 2025
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| In: |
Nature astronomy
Year: 2025, Volume: 9, Issue: 11, Pages: 1732-1744 |
| ISSN: | 2397-3366 |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41550-025-02660-1 |
| Online Access: | Verlag, kostenfrei, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02660-1 Verlag, kostenfrei, Volltext: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-025-02660-1 
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| Author Notes: | Jan-Torge Schindler, Joseph F. Hennawi, Frederick B. Davies, Sarah E.I. Bosman, Ryan Endsley, Feige Wang, Jinyi Yang, Aaron J. Barth, Anna-Christina Eilers, Xiaohui Fan, Koki Kakiichi, Michael Maseda, Elia Pizzati, and Riccardo Nanni |
| Summary: | The nature of ‘little red dots’ and their relation to other forms of accreting supermassive black holes remain an open question. Here we report the discovery of a little red dot at z = 7.3. It is attenuated by moderate amounts of dust, AV = 2.79 mag, and has an intrinsic bolometric luminosity of 1046.6 erg s−1 and a supermassive black hole mass of 5 × 108 M⊙. Most notably, this object is embedded in an overdensity of eight nearby galaxies, allowing us to calculate a spectroscopic estimate of the clustering of galaxies around little red dots. We find a little red dot versus galaxy cross-correlation length of r0 = 8 ± 2 h−1 cMpc, comparable to that of z ≈ 6 ultraviolet-luminous quasars. The resulting estimate of their minimum dark matter halo mass log10(M halo,min/M⊙ ) = 12.0 +0,8 -1,0 indicates that nearly all haloes above this mass must host actively accreting supermassive black holes at z ≈ 7, in strong contrast with the far smaller duty cycle of luminous quasars (<1%). Our results, taken at face value, motivate a picture in which supermassive black holes in little red dot phases could serve as the obscured precursors of ultraviolet-luminous quasars, which provides a natural explanation for the short ultraviolet-luminous lifetimes inferred from both quasar clustering and quasar proximity zones. |
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| Item Description: | Gesehen am 23.02.2026 |
| Physical Description: | Online Resource |
| ISSN: | 2397-3366 |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41550-025-02660-1 |