{"paper":{"title":"On the quenching of LRD X-ray emission by both Compton-thick gas and high accretion rates","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"Little Red Dots stay X-ray dark only with both Compton-thick gas and weak intrinsic emission like high-accretion narrow-line AGN.","cross_cats":["astro-ph.HE"],"primary_cat":"astro-ph.GA","authors_text":"Albert Sneppen, Darach Watson, James H. Matthews, Stuart A. Sim","submitted_at":"2026-05-14T18:00:00Z","abstract_excerpt":"Little Red Dots (LRDs), candidate high-redshift supermassive black holes accreting in dense gas, remain undetected in X-rays. In previous work, we provided the first quantitative models that reproduce the optical and near-infrared spectra of LRDs with the Sirocco radiative transfer code, thereby constraining the properties of the surrounding gas. Here, we use those constraints to predict the X-ray attenuation produced by dense gas cocoons, and explore its dependence on Balmer-break strength, metallicity, intrinsic X-ray SED, and observed bandpass as a function of redshift. We find that the X-r"},"claims":{"count":4,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"We find that the X-ray constraints are very tight, requiring both extinction by a Compton-thick gas column N_H∼10^{25} cm^{-2} with moderate metallicity (0.05-0.1 Z_⊙) and intrinsically weak X-ray emission (bolometric to X-ray luminosity ratio, k_bol,X≳30) as observed in high accretion rate, narrow-line AGN, to make LRDs sufficiently faint to evade detection.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"The gas properties and column densities previously derived from optical and near-infrared spectra using the Sirocco radiative transfer code accurately represent the actual physical conditions around the central black holes.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"LRDs require Compton-thick gas at moderate metallicity plus high accretion rates producing weak X-rays to explain their non-detection, implying they are not chemically pristine.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"headline","text":"Little Red Dots stay X-ray dark only with both Compton-thick gas and weak intrinsic emission like high-accretion narrow-line AGN.","source":"verdict.pith_extraction.headline","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C4","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"9c42edc141a5cc0c3778c41e1b672aaf625ac9505d1984823d06fbd35745eccc"},"source":{"id":"2605.15263","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":"02329481-9717-40c6-b2bf-29884d34ae7d","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-19T16:08:15.578624Z","strongest_claim":"We find that the X-ray constraints are very tight, requiring both extinction by a Compton-thick gas column N_H∼10^{25} cm^{-2} with moderate metallicity (0.05-0.1 Z_⊙) and intrinsically weak X-ray emission (bolometric to X-ray luminosity ratio, k_bol,X≳30) as observed in high accretion rate, narrow-line AGN, to make LRDs sufficiently faint to evade detection.","one_line_summary":"LRDs require Compton-thick gas at moderate metallicity plus high accretion rates producing weak X-rays to explain their non-detection, implying they are not chemically pristine.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"The gas properties and column densities previously derived from optical and near-infrared spectra using the Sirocco radiative transfer code accurately represent the actual physical conditions around the central black holes.","pith_extraction_headline":"Little Red Dots stay X-ray dark only with both Compton-thick gas and weak intrinsic emission like high-accretion narrow-line AGN."},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2605.15263/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[{"name":"doi_title_agreement","ran_at":"2026-05-19T16:31:18.398472Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"doi_compliance","ran_at":"2026-05-19T16:18:58.861330Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"claim_evidence","ran_at":"2026-05-19T14:41:54.276675Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"ai_meta_artifact","ran_at":"2026-05-19T13:33:22.810356Z","status":"skipped","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0}],"snapshot_sha256":"d8d6efe19d2c169773026773fea0aa966889f180970f7f26ee636b9c358ea1dd"},"references":{"count":300,"sample":[{"doi":"10.1146/annurev-astro-082812-141003","year":null,"title":"archivePrefix = \"arXiv\", eprint =","work_id":"7b5fa65f-8b52-43a9-900e-61c6c5bd8ab8","ref_index":1,"cited_arxiv_id":"1401.0586","is_internal_anchor":true},{"doi":"","year":null,"title":"arXiv e-prints , keywords =","work_id":"ddddecf2-5f87-4087-a3a3-47e5f657e65c","ref_index":2,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"10.48550/arxiv.2601.22214","year":null,"title":"arXiv e-prints , keywords =","work_id":"c7c37eca-546c-4689-906b-ed638de8dfe1","ref_index":3,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"10.1038/s41586-022-04659-4","year":2022,"title":", year = 2022, month = may, volume =","work_id":"3ef4e9a3-6c8f-4e52-af27-015313571154","ref_index":4,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"10.1038/s41586-025-09900-4","year":null,"title":"Little red dots as young supermassive black holes in dense ionized cocoons. , keywords =. doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09900-4 , archivePrefix =. 2503.16595 , primaryClass =","work_id":"029332c5-171a-461b-8829-c1c527cea380","ref_index":5,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false}],"resolved_work":300,"snapshot_sha256":"e064b6643076d242c2278fc8bdd010347042004eea4dce78b5ee5eb4c189556f","internal_anchors":70},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":2,"snapshot_sha256":"31807d7204aca3acb9768dd213e3cb7e036f170ef5b7fad4400cdc2ca414df26"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}