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Register a new userAn 800-million-solar-mass black hole in a significantly neutral Universe at redshift 7.5
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Quasars are the most luminous non-transient objects known and as a result they enable studies of the Universe at the earliest cosmic epochs. Despite extensive efforts, however, the quasar ULAS J1120+0641 at z=7.09 has remained the only one known at z>7 for more than half a decade. Here we report observations of the quasar ULAS J134208.10+092838.61 (hereafter J1342+0928) at redshift z=7.54. This quasar has a bolometric luminosity of 4e13 times the luminosity of the Sun and a black hole mass of 8e8 solar masses. The existence of this supermassive black hole when the Universe was only 690 million years old---just five percent of its current age---reinforces models of early black-hole growth that allow black holes with initial masses of more than about 1e4 solar masses or episodic hyper-Eddington accretion. We see strong evidence of absorption of the spectrum of the quasar redwards of the Lyman alpha emission line (the Gunn-Peterson damping wing), as would be expected if a significant amount (more than 10 per cent) of the hydrogen in the intergalactic medium surrounding J1342+0928 is neutral. We derive a significant fraction of neutral hydrogen, although the exact fraction depends on the modelling. However, even in our most conservative analysis we find a fraction of more than 0.33 (0.11) at 68 per cent (95 per cent) probability, indicating that we are probing well within the reionization epoch of the Universe.
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We present ALMA observations of two moderate luminosity quasars at redshift 6. These quasars from the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey (CFHQS) have black hole masses of ~10^8 M_solar. Both quasars are detected in the [CII] line and dust continuum. Combining these data with our previous study of two similar CFHQS quasars we investigate the population properties. We show that z>6 quasars have a significantly lower far-infrared luminosity than bolometric-luminosity-matched samples at lower redshift, inferring a lower star formation rate, possibly correlated with the lower black hole masses at z=6. The ratios of [CII] to far-infrared luminosities in the CFHQS quasars are comparable with those of starbursts of similar star formation rate in the local universe. We determine values of velocity dispersion and dynamical mass for the quasar host galaxies based on the [CII] data. We find that there is no significant offset from the relations defined by nearby galaxies with similar black hole masses. There is however a marked increase in the scatter at z=6, beyond the large observational uncertainties.
At the highest redshifts, z>6, several tens of luminous quasars have been detected. The search for fainter AGN, in deep X-ray surveys, has proven less successful, with few candidates to date. An extrapolation of the relationship between black hole (BH) and bulge mass would predict that the sample of z>6 galaxies host relatively massive BHs (>1e6 Msun), if one assumes that total stellar mass is a good proxy for bulge mass. At least a few of these BHs should be luminous enough to be detectable in the 4Ms CDFS. The relation between BH and stellar mass defined by local moderate-luminosity AGN in low-mass galaxies, however, has a normalization that is lower by approximately an order of magnitude compared to the BH-bulge mass relation. We explore how this scaling changes the interpretation of AGN in the high-z Universe. Despite large uncertainties, driven by those in the stellar mass function, and in the extrapolation of local relations, one can explain the current non-detection of moderate-luminosity AGN in Lyman Break Galaxies if galaxies below 1e11 Msun are characterized by the low-normalization scaling, and, even more so, if their Eddington ratio is also typical of moderate-luminosity AGN rather than luminous quasars. AGN being missed by X-ray searches due to obscuration or instrinsic X-ray weakness also remain a possibility.
We present a large spectroscopic campaign with Keck/MOSFIRE targeting Lyman-alpha emission (Ly$alpha$) from intrinsically faint Lyman-break Galaxies (LBGs) behind 12 efficient galaxy cluster lenses. Gravitational lensing allows us to probe the more abundant faint galaxy population to sensitive Ly$alpha$ equivalent width limits. During the campaign we targeted 70 LBG candidates with MOSFIRE Y-band, selected photometrically to cover Ly$alpha$ over the range $7<z<8.2$. We detect $S/N>5$ emission lines in 2 of these galaxies and find that they are likely Ly$alpha$ at $z=7.148pm0.001$ and $z=7.161pm0.001$. We present new lens models for 4 of the galaxy clusters, using our previously published lens models for the remaining clusters to determine the magnification factors for the source galaxies. Using a Bayesian framework that employs large scale reionization simulations of the intergalactic medium (IGM) as well as realistic properties of the interstellar medium and circumgalactic medium, we infer the volume-averaged neutral hydrogen fraction, $overline{x}_{mathrm{HI}}$, in the IGM during reionization to be $overline{x}_{mathrm{HI}}=0.88^{+0.05}_{-0.10}$ at $z=7.6pm0.6$. Our result is consistent with a late and rapid reionization scenario inferred by Planck.
We report the discovery of a luminous quasar, J1007+2115 at $z=7.515$ (P={o}niu={a}ena), from our wide-field reionization-era quasar survey. J1007+2115 is the second quasar now known at $z>7.5$, deep into the reionization epoch. The quasar is powered by a $(1.5pm0.2)times10^9$ $M_{odot}$ supermassive black hole (SMBH), based on its broad MgII emission-line profile from Gemini and Keck near-IR spectroscopy. The SMBH in J1007+2115 is twice as massive as that in quasar J1342+0928 at $z=7.54$, the current quasar redshift record holder. The existence of such a massive SMBH just 700 million years after the Big Bang significantly challenges models of the earliest SMBH growth. Model assumptions of Eddington-limited accretion and a radiative efficiency of 0.1 require a seed black hole of $gtrsim 10^{4}$ $M_{odot}$ at $z=30$. This requirement suggests either a massive black hole seed as a result of direct collapse or earlier periods of rapid black hole growth with hyper-Eddington accretion and/or a low radiative efficiency. We measure the damping wing signature imprinted by neutral hydrogen absorption in the intergalactic medium (IGM) on J1007+2115s Ly$alpha$ line profile, and find that it is weaker than that of J1342+0928 and two other $zgtrsim7$ quasars. We estimate an IGM volume-averaged neutral fraction $langle xrm_{HI}rangle=0.39^{+0.22}_{-0.13}$. This range of values suggests a patchy reionization history toward different IGM sightlines. We detect the 158 $mu$m [C II] emission line in J1007+2115 with ALMA; this line centroid yields a systemic redshift of $z=7.5149pm0.0004$ and indicates a star formation rate of $sim210$ $M_{odot}$ yr$^{-1}$ in its host galaxy.
The most distant known quasar recently discovered by Ba~nados et al. (2018) is at $z=7.5$ (690 Myr after the Big Bang), at the dawn of galaxy formation. We explore the host galaxy of the brightest quasar in the large volume cosmological hydrodynamic simulation BlueTides, which in Phase II has reached these redshifts. The brightest quasar in BlueTides has a luminosity of a $sim$ few $10^{13} L_{odot}$ and a black hole mass of $6.4 times 10^{8} M_{odot}$ at $z sim 7.5$, comparable to the observed quasar (the only one in this large volume). The quasar resides in a rare halo of mass $M_{H} sim 10^{12} M_{odot}$ and has a host galaxy of stellar mass of $4 times 10^{10}M_{odot}$ with an ongoing (intrinsic) star formation rate of $sim 80 M_{odot} yr^{-1}$. The corresponding intrinsic UV magnitude of the galaxy is $-23.1$, which is roughly $2.7$ magnitudes fainter than the quasars magnitude of $-25.9$. We find that the galaxy is highly metal enriched with a mean metallicity equal to the solar value. We derive quasar and galaxy spectral energy distribution (SED) in the mid and near infrared JWST bands. We predict a significant amount of dust attenuation in the rest-frame UV corresponding to $A_{1500} sim 1.7$ giving an UV based SFR of $sim 14 M_{odot} yr^{-1}$. We present mock JWST images of the galaxy with and without central point source, in different MIRI and NIRCam filters. The host galaxy is detectable in NIRCam filters, but it is extremely compact ($R_{E}=0.35$ kpc). It will require JWSTs exquisite sensitivity and resolution to separate the galaxy from the central point source. Finally within the FOV of the quasar in BlueTides there are two more sources that would be detectable by JWST.
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