ATLAS. IV. A JWST+MUSE Demographic Study of Ly$\alpha$ Profiles in Little Red Dots

Abstract

We present an initial demographic study of Ly$\alpha$ profiles in little red dots (LRDs) at $z=3$--9 using $R\sim1000$--4000 spectroscopy. Our sample consists of 8 LRDs observed in the VLT/MUSE Deep and Wide surveys and 23 LRDs observed with JWST/NIRSpec grating spectroscopy from JADES, CANUCS, and GO programs including SPURS. We identify Ly$\alpha$ emission in 5 MUSE LRDs and 9 JWST LRDs. Only two of them exhibit broad Ly$\alpha$ emission (FWHM $>1000\ \mathrm{km\ s^{-1}}$), both reported previously. The other Ly$\alpha$-emitting LRDs show narrow Ly$\alpha$ emission (FWHM $<1000\ \mathrm{km\ s^{-1}}$), with FWHMs mostly in the range 300--600 $\mathrm{km\ s^{-1}}$, comparable to or slightly larger than those of high-redshift star-forming galaxies (100--500 $\mathrm{km\ s^{-1}}$). We measure the fraction of broad Ly$\alpha$ emitters above a broad Ly$\alpha$ luminosity threshold of $L_{\mathrm{Ly}\alpha,\mathrm{broad}}=10^{42}\ \mathrm{erg\ s^{-1}}$, obtaining $0.10^{+0.12}_{-0.07}$ for LRDs, about five times higher than the $2\sigma$ upper limit of $<0.02$ for high-redshift star-forming galaxies. Although we reproduce the broad Ly$\alpha$ component reported in a previous stacking analysis of eight LRDs, albeit with a large uncertainty, we find no evidence for broad Ly$\alpha$ emission in either the larger JWST stack, after excluding the two individually detected broad Ly$\alpha$ emitters, or the higher-resolution MUSE stack. These results suggest that broad Ly$\alpha$ emission is not ubiquitous among LRDs. Instead, LRDs with broad Ly$\alpha$ emission appear to represent a rare population that may correspond to a particular evolutionary stage, potentially associated with unusually strong outflows or other distinctive physical conditions.