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Connecting the Dots: UV-bright Companions of Little Red Dots as Lyman–Werner Sources Enabling Direct-collapse Black Hole Formation

  • Authors: Josephine F. W. Baggen, Matthew T. Scoggins, Pieter van Dokkum, Zoltán Haiman, Alberto Torralba, Jorryt Matthee

Josephine F. W. Baggen et al 2026 The Astrophysical Journal Letters 1002 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 4.

The total LW magnitude of the companion(s), MLW,tot, is shown as a function of the effective projected separation from the compact red component, deff (defined such that ﹩{L}_{{\rm{LW}},{\rm{tot}}}/{d}_{{\rm{eff}}}^{2}={\sum }_{i}{L}_{{\rm{LW}},i}/{d}_{i}^{2}﹩ when an LRD has multiple companions). Diagonal lines indicate constant LW radiation intensity, J21,LW, incident on the red component. Systems toward the upper left correspond to brighter companions at smaller separations and therefore higher LW intensities. The red dashed line marks a commonly adopted critical threshold for molecular hydrogen dissociation (Jcrit = 103), above which fragmentation is expected to be strongly suppressed. Shaded regions illustrate increasing likelihood for collapse in an LW-regulated regime.

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