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MIDIS: MIRI uncovers Virgil, the first Little Red Dot with clear detection of its host galaxy at z ~ 6.6

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arxiv 2406.18207 v2 pith:7ZYRG2Y5 submitted 2024-06-26 astro-ph.GA

MIDIS: MIRI uncovers Virgil, the first Little Red Dot with clear detection of its host galaxy at z ~ 6.6

classification astro-ph.GA
keywords mirivirgildeeprest-framewavelengthscompletelyextremelyf1000w
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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We present Virgil, a MIRI extremely red object (MERO) detected with the F1000W filter as part of the MIRI Deep Imaging Survey (MIDIS) observations of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF). Virgil is a Lyman-$\alpha$ emitter (LAE) at $z_{spec} = 6.6312\pm 0.0019$ (from VLT/MUSE) with a rest-frame UV-to-optical spectral energy distribution (SED) typical of LAEs at similar redshifts. However, MIRI observations reveal an unexpected extremely red color at rest-frame near-infrared wavelengths, $\rm F444W - F1000W = 2.33 \pm 0.06$. Such steep rise in the near-infrared, completely missed without MIRI imaging, is poorly reproduced by models including only stellar populations and hints towards the presence of an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN). According to the shape of its overall SED, Virgil belongs to the recently discovered population of Little Red Dots (LRDs) but displays an extended rest-frame UV-optical wavelengths morphology following a 2D-S\'ersic profile with average index $n = 0.93^{+0.85}_{-0.31}$ and $r_e = 0.49^{+0.05}_{-0.11}$ pkpc. Only at MIRI wavelengths Virgil is unresolved due to the coarser PSF. We also estimate a bolometric luminosity $L_{\rm bol, AGN} = (8.9-11)\times 10^{44}\rm~erg~s^{-1}$ and a supermassive black hole mass $M_{\rm BH} = (7-9)\times 10^6\rm ~ M_\odot$ (if $\lambda_{\rm Edd} = 1$) in agreement with recently reported values for LRDs. This discovery demonstrates the crucial importance of deep MIRI surveys to find AGN amongst high-$z$ galaxies that otherwise would be completely missed and raises the question of how common Virgil-like objects could be in the early Universe.

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Cited by 2 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. Characterizing the roles of transitory obscured phases and inner torus in shaping the fractions of obscured AGN at cosmic noon

    astro-ph.GA 2025-09 conditional novelty 6.0

    Pure evolutionary AGN light curves can only reproduce cosmic-noon obscured fractions if the visible phase is tuned by luminosity or if a long-lived torus is added; starbursts and mergers alone cannot.

  2. Investigating Little Red Dots with UV Excess: Are They the High-Redshift Siblings of Blue Hot DOGs?

    astro-ph.GA 2025-08 conditional novelty 6.0

    Little Red Dots are not the high-redshift relatives of Blue-excess Hot DOGs; they have less dust obscuration, little hot dust, and likely a different power source.