Konstantinos Kouroumpatzakis, Peter G. Boorman, Jiří Svoboda, Ryan Pfeifle, Abhijeet Borkar, Maitrayee Gupta, Daniel Stern, Andreas Zezas

The growth of galaxies in the early Universe is thought to be dominated by compact, intensely star-forming systems, yet the corresponding growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) within such environments remains poorly constrained. Green Pea galaxies are nearby analogs of rapidly assembling galaxies in the early Universe owing to their compact morphologies, intense star formation, low metallicities, and extreme ionization conditions. Although galaxy interactions are thought to trigger episodes of rapid SMBH growth, direct observations of simultaneous accretion onto multiple SMBHs in compact, intensely star-forming galaxies are lacking. Here we report the discovery of the first confirmed dual active galactic nucleus (AGN) in a Green Pea system, SDSS J162209.41+352107.5. Chandra imaging resolves two luminous hard X-ray sources separated by 8.4 kpc in projection, demonstrating simultaneous accretion onto two SMBHs. Follow-up Keck spectroscopy confirms that the two optical nuclei share a common redshift and independently exhibit broad Balmer emission and high-ionization AGN emission lines. Unlike most known dual AGN, which are typically found in massive mergers, J162209.41+352107.5 is a compact low-mass system analogous to galaxies thought to dominate early phases of galaxy assembly. These findings demonstrate that efficient growth of multiple SMBHs can occur in such environments and establish Green Pea galaxies as nearby laboratories for investigating the interplay between galaxy interactions, star formation, and black-hole growth under conditions analogous to those prevalent in the young Universe.