The emergence of Little Red Dots from binary massive black holes Inayoshi, Kohei Shangguan, Jinyi Chen, Xian Ho, Luis C. Haiman, Zoltán ; https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3633-5403 ddc:520 Little red dots (LRDs) are a newly identified class of broad-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with a distinctive V-shaped spectrum characterized by red optical and blue UV continuum emission. Their high abundance at redshifts of z ∼ 6–8 and decline at lower redshifts suggest a transient origin. We propose that the spectral shape of LRDs originates from compact binary black hole systems, in which each black hole is surrounded by a mini-disk and embedded within a larger circumbinary disk. With a binary separation of ≲103 Schwarzschild radii, the Wien tail of a T ≃ 5000 K blackbody spectrum at the inner edge of the circumbinary disk produces the red optical emission, while the mini-disks power the UV continuum. Binary torques carve out a gap between the circumbinary disk and the mini-disks, setting the turnover wavelength of the V-shaped spectrum around the Balmer limit. This scenario naturally reproduces LRD spectra requiring only modest dust attenuation (AV ≲ 1 mag), resolving overestimated luminosities for LRDs in previous studies and alleviating a tension with the so-called Sołtan argument. This model predicts distinct spectral evolution as the binary orbit decays through binary disk interactions and gravitational-wave (GW) emission, linking early-stage “proto-LRD” binaries to the broader AGN population and late-stage “LRD descendants” to coalescing binaries detectable in GW experiments. IOP Publishing 2026 info:eu-repo/semantics/article doc-type:article text http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_2df8fbb1 https://research-explorer.ista.ac.at/record/21844 https://research-explorer.ista.ac.at/download/21844/21853 Inayoshi K, Shangguan J, Chen X, Ho LC, Haiman Z. The emergence of Little Red Dots from binary massive black holes. <i>The Astrophysical Journal</i>. 2026;1002(1). doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae548d">10.3847/1538-4357/ae548d</a> eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.3847/1538-4357/ae548d info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/0004-637X info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/e-issn/1538-4357 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/arxiv/2505.05322 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess