No Arabic abstract
We report the discovery of the ultra-luminous QSO SMSS~J215728.21-360215.1 with magnitude $z=16.9$ and W4$=7.42$ at redshift 4.75. Given absolute magnitudes of $M_{145,rm AB}=-29.3$, $M_{300,rm AB}=-30.12$ and $log L_{rm bol}/L_{rm bol,odot} = 14.84$, it is the QSO with the highest unlensed UV-optical luminosity currently known in the Universe. It was found by combining proper-motion data from Gaia DR2 with photometry from SkyMapper DR1 and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). In the Gaia database it is an isolated single source and thus unlikely to be strongly gravitationally lensed. It is also unlikely to be a beamed source as it is not discovered in the radio domain by either NVSS or SUMSS. It is classed as a weak-emission-line QSO and possesses broad absorption line features. A lightcurve from ATLAS spanning the time from October 2015 to December 2017 shows little sign of variability.
We present 20 WISE-selected galaxies with bolometric luminosities L_bol > 10^14 L_sun, including five with infrared luminosities L_IR = L(rest 8-1000 micron) > 10^14 L_sun. These extremely luminous infrared galaxies, or ELIRGs, were discovered using the W1W2-dropout selection criteria which requires marginal or non-detections at 3.4 and 4.6 micron (W1 and W2, respectively) but strong detections at 12 and 22 micron in the WISE survey. Their spectral energy distributions are dominated by emission at rest-frame 4-10 micron, suggesting that hot dust with T_d ~ 450K is responsible for the high luminosities. These galaxies are likely powered by highly obscured AGNs, and there is no evidence suggesting these systems are beamed or lensed. We compare this WISE-selected sample with 116 optically selected quasars that reach the same L_bol level, corresponding to the most luminous unobscured quasars in the literature. We find that the rest-frame 5.8 and 7.8 micron luminosities of the WISE-selected ELIRGs can be 30-80% higher than that of the unobscured quasars. The existence of AGNs with L_bol > 10^14 L_sun at z > 3 suggests that these supermassive black holes are born with large mass, or have very rapid mass assembly. For black hole seed masses ~ 10^3 M_sun, either sustained super-Eddington accretion is needed, or the radiative efficiency must be <15%, implying a black hole with slow spin, possibly due to chaotic accretion.
We present a search for bright $zsim5$ quasars using imaging data from SkyMapper Southern Survey, Pan-STARRS1 and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). We select two sets of candidates using WISE with optical bands from SkyMapper and alternatively from Pan-STARRS1, limited to a magnitude of $i<18.2$. We follow up several candidates with spectroscopy and find that the four candidates common to both lists are quasars, while others turned out to be cool stars. Two of the four quasars, SMSS J013539.27-212628.4 at $z=4.86$ and SMSS J093032.58-221207.7 at $z=4.94$, are new discoveries and ranked among the dozen brightest known $z>4.5$ QSOs in the $i$-band.
The most luminous quasars at high redshift harbour the fastest-growing and most massive black holes in the early Universe. They are exceedingly rare and hard to find. Here, we present our search for the most luminous quasars in the redshift range from $z=4.5$ to $5$ using data from SkyMapper, Gaia and WISE. We use colours to select likely high-redshift quasars and reduce the stellar contamination of the candidate set with parallax and proper motion data. In $sim$12,500~deg$^2$ of Southern sky, we find 92 candidates brighter than $R_p=18.2$. Spectroscopic follow-up has revealed 21 quasars at $zge 4$ (16 of which are within $z=[4.5,5]$), as well as several red quasars, BAL quasars and objects with unusual spectra, which we tentatively label OFeLoBALQSOs at redshifts of $zapprox 1$ to $2$. This work lifts the number of known bright $zge 4.5$ quasars in the Southern hemisphere from 10 to 26 and brings the total number of quasars known at $R_p<18.2$ and $zge 4.5$ to 42.
We report the discovery of BOSS-EUVLG1 at z=2.469, by far the most luminous, almost un-obscured star-forming galaxy known at any redshift. First classified as a QSO within the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, follow-up observations with the Gran Telescopio Canarias reveal that its large luminosity, MUV = -24.40 and log(L_Lya/erg s-1) = 44.0, is due to an intense burst of star-formation, and not to an AGN or gravitational lensing. BOSS-EUVLG1 is a compact (reff = 1.2 kpc), young (4-5 Myr) starburst with a stellar mass log(M*/Msun) = 10.0 +/- 0.1 and a prodigious star formation rate of ~1000 Msun yr-1. However, it is metal- and dust-poor (12+log(O/H) = 8.13 +/- 0.19, E(B-V) = 0.07, log(LIR/LUV) < -1.2), indicating that we are witnessing the very early phase of an intense starburst that has had no time to enrich the ISM. BOSS-EUVLG1 might represent a short-lived (<100 Myrs), yet important phase of star-forming galaxies at high redshift that has been missed in previous surveys. Within a galaxy evolutionary scheme, BOSS-EUVLG1 could likely represent the very initial phases in the evolution of massive quiescent galaxies, even before the dusty star-forming phase.
Hot Dust-Obscured Galaxies (Hot DOGs) are hyperluminous ($L_{mathrm{8-1000,mu m}}>10^{13},mathrm{L_odot}$) infrared galaxies with extremely high (up to hundreds of K) dust temperatures. The sources powering both their extremely high luminosities and dust temperatures are thought to be deeply buried and rapidly accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Hot DOGs could therefore represent a key evolutionary phase in which the SMBH growth peaks. X-ray observations can be used to study their obscuration levels and luminosities. In this work, we present the X-ray properties of the 20 most-luminous ($L_{mathrm{bol}}gtrsim10^{14}, L_odot$) known Hot DOGs at $z=2-4.6$. Five of them are covered by long-exposure ($10-70$ ks) Chandra and XMM-Newton observations, with three being X-ray detected, and we study their individual properties. One of these sources (W0116$-$0505) is a Compton-thick candidate, with column density $N_H=(1.0-1.5)times10^{24},mathrm{cm^{-2}}$ derived from X-ray spectral fitting. The remaining 15 Hot DOGs have been targeted by a Chandra snapshot (3.1 ks) survey. None of these 15 is individually detected; therefore we applied a stacking analysis to investigate their average emission. From hardness-ratio analysis, we constrained the average obscuring column density and intrinsic luminosity to be log$N_H,mathrm{[cm^{-2}]}>23.5$ and $L_Xgtrsim10^{44},mathrm{erg,cm^{-2},s^{-1}}$, which are consistent with results for individually detected sources. We also investigated the $L_X-L_{6mumathrm{m}}$ and $L_X-L_{bol}$ relations, finding hints that Hot DOGs are typically X-ray weaker than expected, although larger samples of luminous obscured QSOs are needed to derive solid conclusions.