Red Dots at Cosmic Noon with Roman
| Program ID | 19095 |
|---|---|
| Science Category | Active Galaxies & Supermassive Black Holes |
| Program Type | Analysis |
| Category | Medium |
| Principal Investigator | Ryan Hickox |
| PI Institution | Dartmouth College |
| Co-Investigators |
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| Abstract | We propose to use the Roman High Latitude Wide Area Survey (HLWAS) to open an entirely new window on "Little Red Dots" (LRDs). These enigmatic objects discovered with the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed a potentially new mode of black hole growth in the early Universe. However, these faint, high-redshift sources have been challenging to study, and their seemingly rapid evolution with redshift remains poorly understood. The Roman HLWAS provides a combination of wide area, sensitivity, and spatial resolution in the infrared that will allow us to identify and study much larger populations of LRDs at lower redshift. The main goal of this proposal is to leverage the exceptionally wide and deep IR imaging and spectroscopic surveys in the Roman HLWAS Deep and Medium tiers to build a robust sample of Red Dots at cosmic noon (z~2), and study the evolution of their luminosity function, spatial clustering, variability, and multiwavelength characteristics. This project will make full use of Roman's unique capabilities to understand the nature of the earliest black holes and how they evolve over cosmic time. |