Speaker
Description
Little Red Dots (LRDs) represent one of the most enigmatic source classes discovered by JWST. The origin of their compactness, X-ray/radio weakness, and V-shaped spectra remains a subject of intense debate. In this talk, I will present compelling evidence that hot (~800 K) dust emission dominates the rest-frame NIR (1-3 um) at a population level. By performing median stacking of NIRCam and MIRI images of a large (N~300) and homogeneously-selected sample of LRDs across major legacy fields (PRIMER, JADES, and CEERS), we reveal a rising NIR slope up to rest-frame 3 um (i.e. MIRI 18um/21um bands at z~6). This feature is best explained by a standard dusty AGN structure. While the LRD population is likely heterogeneous, our findings indicate that the majority (>50%) exhibit AGN-heated dust emission, irrespective of whether their optical/UV continuum is stellar- or AGN-dominated. The combination of our best-fit AGN template and non-detections in deep Chandra stacks suggests that the observed X-ray weakness is caused by heavy gas obscuration within the dust sublimation radius (<0.1 pc). We conclude by discussing recent radio-VLBI follow-ups and new observing strategies to reach a more comprehensive census of the LRD population.