A black hole in a near pristine galaxy 700 Myr after the big bang

Abstract

The recent discovery of a large number of massive black holes within the first two billion years after the big bang, as well as their peculiar properties, have been largely unexpected based on the extrapolation of the properties of luminous quasars. These findings have prompted the development of several theoretical models for the early formation and growth of black holes, which are, however, difficult to differentiate. We report the metallicity measurement around a gravitationally lensed massive black hole at redshift 7.04 (classified as a Little Red Dot), hosted in a galaxy with very low dynamical mass. The weakness of the [O iii]5007 emission line relative to the narrow H emission indicates extremely low metallicity, about solar, and even more metal poor in the surrounding few 100 pc. We argue that such properties cannot be uncommon among accreting black holes around this early cosmic epoch. Explaining such a low chemical enrichment in a system that has developed a massive black hole is challenging for most theories. Models assuming heavy black hole seeds (such as Direct Collapse Black Holes) or super-Eddington accretion scenarios struggle to explain the observations, although they can potentially reproduce the observed properties in some cases. Models invoking ‘primordial black holes’ (i.e. putative black holes formed shortly after the big bang) may potentially explain the low chemical enrichment associated with this black hole, although this class of models also requires further developments for proper testing.