Abstract

Invited Talk - Plenary

Thursday, 10 September 2026, 09:30   (MW-1801 / virtual plenum)

Little Red Dots: a remarkable new class of growing black holes

Anna de Graaff
MPIA

Among the most debated discoveries with JWST is the nature of so-called Little Red Dots (LRDs): compact, red sources at high redshifts. LRDs are ubiquitous at z~4-8, comprising a few percent of the entire galaxy population. Due to their unique spectral properties LRDs were initially thought to be either extremely massive galaxies, in tension with the standard cosmological paradigm, or highly dust-reddened active galactic nuclei, in tension with theoretical models of black hole growth. However, recent observations have called both these interpretations into question and instead proposed that LRDs may constitute an entirely new astrophysical phenomenon, also dubbed "black hole stars". In this talk, I will present the major recent progress in our understanding of LRDs and the key role played by JWST spectroscopy in providing crucial empirical constraints. I will show that LRDs have some important physical properties in common with massive stars, and discuss caveats and open questions that still remain.