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Large-scale surveys over the last years have revealed about 300 QSOs at redshift above 6. Follow-up observations identified surprising properties, such as the very high black hole (BH) masses, spatial correlations with surrounding cold gas of the host galaxy, or high CIV-MgII velocity shifts. In particular, the discovery of luminous high-redshift quasars suggests that at least some black holes likely have large masses at birth and grow efficiently. We aim at quantifying quasar pairs at high redshift for a large sample of objects. This provides a new key constraint on a combination of parameters related to the origin and assembly for the most massive black holes: BH formation efficiency and clustering, growth efficiency and relative contribution of BH mergers. We observed 116 spectroscopically confirmed QSOs around redshift 6 with the simultaneous 7-channel imager GROND in order to search for companions. Applying identical colour-colour cuts as for those which led to the spectroscopically confirmed QSO, we perform LePHARE fits to the 26 best QSO pair candidates, and obtained spectroscopic observations for 11 of those. e do not find any QSO pair with a companion brighter than M1450(AB) < -26 mag within our 0.1-3.3 h^-1 cMpc search radius, in contrast to the serendipitous findings in the redshift range 4--5. However, a low fraction of such pairs at this luminosity and redshift is consistent with indications from present-day cosmological-scale galaxy evolution models. In turn, the incidence of L- and T-type brown dwarfs which occupy a similar colour space as z ~ 6 QSOs, is higher than expected, by a factor of 5 and 20, respectively.
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We present imaging and spectroscopic observations for six quasars at z>5.9 discovered by the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey (CFHQS). The CFHQS contains sub-surveys with a range of flux and area combinations to sample a wide range of quasar luminosities at z~6. The new quasars have luminosities 10 to 75 times lower than the most luminous SDSS quasars at this redshift. The least luminous quasar, CFHQS J0216-0455 at z=6.01, has absolute magnitude M_1450=-22.21, well below the likely break in the luminosity function. This quasar is not detected in a deep XMM-Newton survey showing that optical selection is still a very efficient tool for finding high redshift quasars.
Distant quasars are unique tracers to study the formation of the earliest supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and the history of cosmic reionization. Despite extensive efforts, only two quasars have been found at $zge7.5$, due to a combination of their low spatial density and the high contamination rate in quasar selection. We report the discovery of a luminous quasar at $z=7.642$, J0313$-$1806, the most distant quasar yet known. This quasar has a bolometric luminosity of $3.6times10^{13} L_odot$. Deep spectroscopic observations reveal a SMBH with a mass of $(1.6pm0.4) times10^9M_odot$ in this quasar. The existence of such a massive SMBH just $sim$670 million years after the Big Bang challenges significantly theoretical models of SMBH growth. In addition, the quasar spectrum exhibits strong broad absorption line (BAL) features in CIV and SiIV, with a maximum velocity close to 20% of the speed of light. The relativistic BAL features, combined with a strongly blueshifted CIV emission line, indicate that there is a strong active galactic nucleus (AGN) driven outflow in this system. ALMA observations detect the dust continuum and [CII] emission from the quasar host galaxy, yielding an accurate redshift of $7.6423 pm 0.0013$ and suggesting that the quasar is hosted by an intensely star-forming galaxy, with a star formation rate of $rmsim 200 ~M_odot ~yr^{-1}$ and a dust mass of $sim7times10^7~M_odot$. Followup observations of this reionization-era BAL quasar will provide a powerful probe of the effects of AGN feedback on the growth of the earliest massive galaxies.
We present a new redshift survey, the 2dF Quasar Dark Energy Survey pilot (2QDESp), which consists of ${approx}10000$ quasars from ${approx}150$ deg$^2$ of the southern sky, based on VST-ATLAS imaging and 2dF/AAOmega spectroscopy. Combining our optical photometry with the WISE (W1,W2) bands we can select essentially contamination free quasar samples with $0.8{<}z{<}2.5$ and $g{<}20.5$. At fainter magnitudes, optical UVX selection is still required to reach our $g{approx}22.5$ limit. Using both these techniques we observed quasar redshifts at sky densities up to $90$ deg$^{-2}$. By comparing 2QDESp with other surveys (SDSS, 2QZ and 2SLAQ) we find that quasar clustering is approximately luminosity independent, with results for all four surveys consistent with a correlation scale of $r_{0}{=}6.1{pm}0.1 : h^{-1}$Mpc, despite their decade range in luminosity. We find a significant redshift dependence of clustering, particularly when BOSS data with $r_{0}{=}7.3{pm}0.1 : h^{-1}$Mpc are included at $z{approx}2.4$. All quasars remain consistent with having a single host halo mass of ${approx}2{pm}1{times}10^{12} : h^{-1}M_odot$. This result implies that either quasars do not radiate at a fixed fraction of the Eddington luminosity or AGN black hole and dark matter halo masses are weakly correlated. No significant evidence is found to support fainter, X-ray selected quasars at low redshift having larger halo masses as predicted by the `hot halo mode AGN model of Fanidakis et al. 2013. Finally, although the combined quasar sample reaches an effective volume as large as that of the original SDSS LRG sample, we do not detect the BAO feature in these data.
We present high angular resolution imaging ($23.9 times 11.3$ mas, $138.6 times 65.5$ pc) of the radio-loud quasar PSO~J352.4034$-$15.3373 at $z=5.84$ with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) at 1.54 GHz. This quasar has the highest radio-to-optical flux density ratio at such a redshift, making it the radio-loudest source known to date at $z sim 6$. The VLBA observations presented here resolve this quasar into multiple components with an overall linear extent of 1.62 kpc ($0rlap{.}{}28$) and with a total flux density of $6.57 pm 0.38$ mJy, which is about half of the emission measured at a much lower angular resolution. The morphology of the source is comparable with either a radio core with a one-sided jet, or a compact or a medium-size Symmetric Object (CSO/MSO). If the source is a CSO/MSO, and assuming an advance speed of $0.2c$, then the estimated kinematic age is $sim 10^4$ yr.
Models and observations suggest that luminous quasar activity is triggered by mergers, so it should preferentially occur in the most massive primordial dark matter haloes, where the frequency of mergers is expected to be the highest. Since the importance of galaxy mergers increases with redshift, we identify the high-redshift Universe as the ideal laboratory for studying dual AGN. Here we present the X-ray properties of two systems of dual quasars at z=3.0-3.3 selected from the SDSS-DR6 at separations of 6-8 arcsec (43-65kpc) and observed by Chandra for 65ks each. Both members of each pair are detected with good photon statistics to allow us to constrain the column density, spectral slope and intrinsic X-ray luminosity. We also include a recently discovered dual quasar at z=5 (separation of 21 arcsec, 136kpc) for which XMM-Newton archival data allow us to detect the two components separately. Using optical spectra we derived bolometric luminosities, BH masses and Eddington ratios that were compared to those of luminous SDSS quasars in the same redshift ranges. We find that the brighter component of both pairs at z=3.0-3.3 has high luminosities compared to the distribution of SDSS quasars at similar redshift, with J1622A having an order magnitude higher luminosity than the median. This source lies at the luminous end of the z~3.3 quasar luminosity function. While we cannot conclusively state that the unusually high luminosities of our sources are related to their having a close companion, for J1622A there is only a 3% probability that it is by chance.
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