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We report detections of six high-redshift (1.8 < z < 6.4), optically luminous, radio-quiet quasars at 350 micron, using the SHARC II bolometer camera at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. Our observations double the number of high-redshift quasars for which 350 micron photometry is available. By combining the 350 micron measurements with observations at other submillimeter/millimeter wavelengths, for each source we have determined the temperature of the emitting dust (ranging from 40 to 60 K) and the far-infrared luminosity (0.6 to 2.2 x 10(13) Lo). The combined mean spectral energy distribution (SED) of all high-redshift quasars with two or more rest frame far-infrared photometric measurements is best fit with a greybody with temperature of 47 +- 3 K and a dust emissivity power-law spectral index of beta = 1.6 +- 0.1. This warm dust component is a good tracer of the starburst activity of the quasar host galaxy. The ratio of the far-infrared to radio luminosities of infrared luminous, radio-quiet high-redshift quasars is consistent with that found for local star-forming galaxies.
We report observations of a sample of high redshift sources (1.8<z<4.7), mainly radio-quiet quasars, at 350 microns using the SHARC bolometer camera at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. Nine sources were detected (>4-sigma) and upper limits were obtained for 11 with 350 micron flux density limits (3-sigma) in the range 30-125mJy. Combining published results at other far-infrared and millimeter wavelengths with the present data, we are able to estimate the temperature of the dust, finding relatively low values, averaging 50K. From the spectral energy distribution, we derive dust masses of a few 10^8 M_sun and luminosities of 4-33x10^{12} L_sun (uncorrected for any magnification) implying substantial star formation activity. Thus both the temperature and dust masses are not very different from those of local ultraluminous infrared galaxies. For this redshift range, the 350 micron observations trace the 60-100 micron rest frame emission and are thus directly comparable with IRAS studies of low redshift galaxies.
We present observations of four z>= SDSS quasars at 350 micron with the SHARC-II bolometer camera on the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. These are among the deepest observations that have been made by SHARC-II at 350 micron, and three quasars are detected at >=3 sigma significance, greatly increasing the sample of 350 micron (corresponds to rest frame wavelengths of <60 micron at z>=5), detected high-redshift quasars. The derived rest frame far-infrared (FIR) emission in the three detected sources is about five to ten times stronger than that expected from the average SED of the local quasars given the same 1450A luminosity. Combining the previous submillimeter and millimeter observations at longer wavelengths, the temperatures of the FIR-emitting warm dust from the three quasar detections are estimated to be in the range of 39 to 52 K. Additionally, the FIR-to-radio SEDs of the three 350 micron detections are consistent with the emission from typical star forming galaxies. The FIR luminosities are ~10^{13} L_solar and the dust masses are >= 10^{8}M_solar. These results confirm that huge amounts of warm dust can exist in the host galaxies of optically bright quasars as early as z~6. The universe is so young at these epochs (~1 Gyr) that a rapid dust formation mechanism is required. We estimate the size of the FIR dust emission region to be about a few kpc, and further provide a comparison of the SEDs among different kinds of dust emitting sources to investigate the dominant dust heating mechanism.
The detection of powerful near-infrared emission in high redshift (z>5) quasars demonstrates that very hot dust is present close to the active nucleus also in the very early universe. A number of high-redshift objects even show significant excess emission in the rest frame NIR over more local AGN spectral energy distribution (SED) templates. In order to test if this is a result of the very high luminosities and redshifts, we construct mean SEDs from the latest SDSS quasar catalogue in combination with MIR data from the WISE preliminary data release for several redshift and luminosity bins. Comparing these mean SEDs with a large sample of z>5 quasars we could not identify any significant trends of the NIR spectral slope with luminosity or redshift in the regime 2.5 < z < 6 and 10^45 < nuL_nu(1350AA) < 10^47 erg/s. In addition to the NIR regime, our combined Herschel and Spitzer photometry provides full infrared SED coverage of the same sample of z>5 quasars. These observations reveal strong FIR emission (L_FIR > 10^13 L_sun) in seven objects, possibly indicating star-formation rates of several thousand solar masses per year. The FIR excess emission has unusally high temperatures (T ~ 65 K) which is in contrast to the temperature typically expected from studies at lower redshift (T ~ 45 K). These objects are currently being investigated in more detail.
We present detections of emission at 250 GHz (1.2 mm) from two high redshift QSOs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey sample using the bolometer array at the IRAM 30m telescope. The sources are SDSSp 015048.83+004126.2 at z = 3.7, and SDSSp J033829.31+002156.3 at z = 5.0, which is the third highest redshift QSO known, and the highest redshift mm emitting source yet identified. We also present deep radio continuum imaging of these two sources at 1.4 GHz using the Very Large Array. The combination of cm and mm observations indicate that the 250 GHz emission is most likely thermal dust emission, with implied dust masses of 1e8 M_solar. We consider possible dust heating mechanisms, including UV emission from the active nucleus (AGN), and a massive starburst concurrent with the AGN, with implied star formation rates > 1e3 M_solar/year.
We present a summary of data obtained with the 350 micron polarimeter, Hertz, at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. We give tabulated results and maps showing polarization vectors and flux contours. The summary includes over 4300 individual measurements in 56 Galactic sources and 2 galaxies. Of these measurements, 2153 have P >= 3sigma_p statistical significance. The median polarization of the entire data set is 1.46%.