BlackTHUNDER strikes twice: Balmer-line absorption in an overmassive Little Red Dot at z = 7.04

D’Eugenio, Francesco, Maiolino, Roberto, Perna, Michele, Übler, Hannah, Ji, Xihan, McClymont, William, Koudmani, Sophie, Sijacki, Debora, Juodžbalis, Ignas, Scholtz, Jan, Bennett, Jake S, Bunker, Andrew J, Carniani, Stefano, Charlot, Stéphane, Cresci, Giovanni, Curtis-Lake, Emma, Bontà, Elena Dalla, Inayoshi, Kohei, Jones, Gareth C, Lyu, Jianwei, Marconi, Alessandro, Mazzolari, Giovanni, Nelson, Erica J, Parlanti, Eleonora, Robertson, Brant E, Schneider, Raffaella, Simmonds, Charlotte, Tacchella, Sandro, Venturi, Giacomo, Willott, Chris, Witstok, Joris and Witten, Callum (2026) BlackTHUNDER strikes twice: Balmer-line absorption in an overmassive Little Red Dot at z = 7.04. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 547 (4). ISSN 0035-8711
Copy

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed a population of ‘Little Red Dots’ (LRDs): compact, red objects at redshifts with ‘v’-shaped spectral energy distributions, broad permitted lines, and, often, hydrogen Balmer absorption. We use NIRSpec/IFS data from the BlackTHUNDER survey to study the H α line in the LRD Abell2744-QSO1 at , which is a confirmed active galactic nucleus (AGN) due to time-variable equivalent width (EW) in its broad emission lines. The H α spectral profile is non-Gaussian, requiring at least two Gaussian components. We also detect a narrow-line Gaussian component, and strong H α absorption (EW relative to the continuum ), confirming a connection between the strong Balmer break and line absorption. The absorber is at rest with respect to broad H α , suggesting that the gas cannot be interpreted as an inflow or outflow, forming instead a long-lived structure. Its velocity dispersion is , consistent with the value inferred from the analysis of the Balmer break. Based on H α , we infer a black hole mass of , smaller but close to the previous estimates based on H β . The Eddington ratio is 0.09. Combining the high signal-to-noise ratio of the narrow H α line with the spectral resolution of the G395H grating, we infer a narrow-line intrinsic dispersion , which places a stringent constraint on the black hole-to-dynamical mass ratio of this system to be , confirming the overmassive nature of the black hole and potentially leaving little room for a host galaxy.


picture_as_pdf
stag401.pdf
subject
Published Version
Available under Creative Commons: BY 4.0

View Download

EndNote BibTeX Reference Manager Refer Atom Dublin Core MPEG-21 DIDL METS HTML Citation RIOXX2 XML OpenURL ContextObject MODS Data Cite XML ASCII Citation OpenURL ContextObject in Span
Export

Downloads