Why early universe black holes outgrew their galaxies — and then stopped

When dark matter halos are young and cold, their gravity can funnel gas onto central black holes faster than stellar feedback can resist, producing black holes far heavier than local scaling relations predict. As the halo matures, it develops a hot, pressure-supported atmosphere that chokes off accretion and steers the system back toward the familiar black-hole–stellar-mass track. In this picture, Little Red Dots are the luminous signature of that rapid growth phase, while over-massive black holes are its mass imprint. The framework unifies two puzzling JWST populations without invoking exotic seeding mechanisms.