4 papers
Little Red Dot Host Galaxy Black Hole Star: A Gas-Enshrouded Heart at the Center of Every Little Red Dot
Wendy Q. Sun, Rohan P. Naidu, Jorryt Matthee +30
The central engines of Little Red Dots (LRDs) may be ``black hole stars" (BH*s), early stages of black hole growth characterized by dense gas envelopes. So far, the most direct evi…
Evolutionary Tracks and Spectral Properties of Quasi-stars and Their Correlation with Little Red Dots
Andrew D. Santarelli, Ebraheem Farag, Earl P. Bellinger +4
JWST has revealed a population of red, compact, high-redshift () objects referred to as ``Little Red Dots'' (LRDs). These objects exhibit unusual spectral features rem…
MESA-QUEST: Tracing the formation of direct collapse black hole seeds via quasi-stars
Andrew D. Santarelli, Claire B. Campbell, Ebraheem Farag +3
The origin of the first supermassive black holes (SMBHs) observed at redshifts remains one of the most challenging open questions in astrophysics. Their rapid emergence s…
MESA-QUEST: Modeling Quasi-Stars in MESA
Claire B. Campbell, Andrew D. Santarelli, Matthew E. Caplan
Supermassive black hole formation remains an unsolved problem. Quasi-stars have been suggested as a viable heavy-seeding mechanism. In this work, we implement methods for modeling…