Extending the Little Red Dot population at intermediate redshift with VIPERS
Abstract
Little red dots (LRDs) are a recently identified population of compact, red sources characterised by a distinctive V-shaped UV-to-optical continuum and broad emission lines. Their physical structure and evolution remain uncertain, while their properties at intermediate redshifts are largely unexplored. We identify and characterise LRD-like sources at 0.5<z<1.75 using the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS), extending observational studies to a previously poorly explored cosmic epoch. We select candidates from their UV and optical slopes measured from broadband photometry and refine the sample using broad emission lines in VIPERS spectroscopy. We investigate their photometric, spectroscopic, and morphological properties, constrain their physical sizes with HSC imaging, measure their comoving number density and evolution, and characterise their local environments using the VIPERS galaxy density field. We also model the multi-wavelength emission of the unique X-ray-detected source with CIGALE, including X-ray and AGN emission. We identify 14 LRD-like sources, including one X-ray-detected object, whose HSC morphology remains unresolved. We measure their number density in two redshift bins, 0.5<z<1 and 1<z<1.75, and combine our results with literature measurements. We find a rapid decline in number density after cosmic noon. The two sources with sufficiently constrained environments are located in underdense regions. The SED of the X-ray-detected source is best reproduced by a radiatively efficient accretion disk viewed at low inclination. Our results demonstrate that LRD-like sources are present at z>0.5, bridging local and high-redshift studies. Their abundance, compact morphology, environmental properties, and multi-wavelength emission provide new constraints on the evolution and physical origin of this population.
Related
- Small-Scale Clustering of Primordial Black Holes: The Little Red Dot Mass Function and the High-Redshift Galaxy Tension
- A Cosmological Framework for Stellar Collisions at High Redshift in Proto-globular Clusters, Nuclear Star Clusters, and Little Red Dots
- A Vision for Little Red Dots in the Low-Redshift Universe with ALMA2040
- A direct black-hole mass measurement in a little red dot at high redshift
- (LRDs)2: The Low-ReDshift Little Red Dots Survey. II. DESI DR1 Sample
BibTeX
@misc{lisiecki2026extending,
title = {{Extending the Little Red Dot population at intermediate redshift with VIPERS}},
author = {Krzysztof Lisiecki and Krzysztof Hryniewicz and Francesco Pistis and Michał J. Michałowski and Aidan P. Cotter and Maciej Koprowski and Miguel Figueira and Agnieszka Pollo and Katarzyna Małek and Olga Cucciati},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.10319},
eprint = {2609.10319},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.10319},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Extending the Little Red Dot population at intermediate redshift with VIPERS
AU - Krzysztof Lisiecki
AU - Krzysztof Hryniewicz
AU - Francesco Pistis
AU - Michał J. Michałowski
AU - Aidan P. Cotter
AU - Maciej Koprowski
AU - Miguel Figueira
AU - Agnieszka Pollo
AU - Katarzyna Małek
AU - Olga Cucciati
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/09
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.10319
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.10319
AB - Little red dots (LRDs) are a recently identified population of compact, red sources characterised by a distinctive V-shaped UV-to-optical continuum and broad emission lines. Their physical structure and evolution remain uncertain, while their properties at intermediate redshifts are largely unexplored. We identify and characterise LRD-like sources at 0.5<z<1.75 using the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS), extending observational studies to a previously poorly explored cosmic epoch. We select candidates from their UV and optical slopes measured from broadband photometry and refine the sample using broad emission lines in VIPERS spectroscopy. We investigate their photometric, spectroscopic, and morphological properties, constrain their physical sizes with HSC imaging, measure their comoving number density and evolution, and characterise their local environments using the VIPERS galaxy density field. We also model the multi-wavelength emission of the unique X-ray-detected source with CIGALE, including X-ray and AGN emission. We identify 14 LRD-like sources, including one X-ray-detected object, whose HSC morphology remains unresolved. We measure their number density in two redshift bins, 0.5<z<1 and 1<z<1.75, and combine our results with literature measurements. We find a rapid decline in number density after cosmic noon. The two sources with sufficiently constrained environments are located in underdense regions. The SED of the X-ray-detected source is best reproduced by a radiatively efficient accretion disk viewed at low inclination. Our results demonstrate that LRD-like sources are present at z>0.5, bridging local and high-redshift studies. Their abundance, compact morphology, environmental properties, and multi-wavelength emission provide new constraints on the evolution and physical origin of this population.
ER -