From Nuclear Star Clusters to Little Red Dots: Black Hole Growth, Mergers, and Tidal Disruptions

Journal article

Little Red Dots, discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope, are hypothesized to be active galactic nuclei containing a supermassive black hole, possibly surrounded by a dense stellar cluster, large amounts of gas, and likely by a population of stellar-mass black holes. We develop a simple nuclear star cluster model to evolve the rapid mass growth of black hole seeds into the supermassive regime. The combined processes of tidal disruption events, black hole captures, and gas accretion are accounted for self-consistently in our model. Given the observed number density of Little Red Dots, and under reasonable assumptions, we predict at least a few tens of tidal disruption events and at least a few black hole captures at z = 4–6, with a tidal disruption event rate an order of magnitude larger than the black hole capture rate. We also estimate the uncertainties in these estimates. Finally, we comment on the low X-ray luminosity of Little Red Dots.

Authors: Kritos, K; Silk, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Astronomical Society
• Journal: The Astrophysical Journal
• Volume: 1004
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 226
• Article number: 226
• Publication date: 2026-06-16
• Acceptance date: 2026-05-23
• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ae731c
• EISSN: 1538-4357
• ISSN: 0004637X, 0004-637X
• Language: English
• Keywords: James Webb Space Telescope; Active galactic nuclei; Star clusters; Supermassive black holes; Tidal disruption