We present deep near-infrared spectroscopy of six quasars at 6.1 ≤ z ≤ 6.7 with Very Large Telescope/X-Shooter and Gemini-N/GNIRS. Our objects, originally discovered through a wide-field optical ...survey with the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP), have the lowest luminosities (−25.5 mag ≤ M1450 ≤ −23.1 mag) of the z > 5.8 quasars with measured black hole (BH) masses. From single-epoch mass measurements based on Mg ii λ2798, we find a wide range in BH masses, from MBH = 107.6 to 109.3 M . The Eddington ratios Lbol/LEdd range from 0.16 to 1.1, but the majority of the HSC quasars are powered by MBH ∼ 109 M supermassive black holes (SMBHs) accreting at sub-Eddington rates. The Eddington ratio distribution of the HSC quasars is inclined to lower accretion rates than those of Willott et al., who measured the BH masses for similarly faint z ∼ 6 quasars. This suggests that the global Eddington ratio distribution is wider than has previously been thought. The presence of MBH ∼ 109 M SMBHs at z ∼ 6 cannot be explained with constant sub-Eddington accretion from stellar remnant seed BHs. Therefore, we may be witnessing the first buildup of the most massive BHs in the first billion years of the universe, the accretion activity of which is transforming from active growth to a quiescent phase. Measurements of a larger complete sample of z 6 low-luminosity quasars, as well as deeper observations with future facilities, will enable us to better understand the early SMBH growth in the reionization epoch.
Abstract
We surveyed a central 0.6 deg
2
region of the Abell 1367 cluster for extended ionized gas clouds (EIGs) using the Subaru prime-focus camera (Suprime-Cam) with a narrowband filter that covers ...H
α
. We discovered six new EIGs in addition to five known EIGs. We also found that the H
α
tail from the blue infalling group is extended to about 330 kpc in projected distance, which is about twice longer than previously reported. Candidates of star-forming blobs in the tail are detected. The properties of the EIG parent galaxies in Abell 1367 basically resemble those in the Coma cluster. A noticeable difference is that there are significantly fewer detached EIGs in Abell 1367, while the fraction of blue member galaxies is higher. The results suggest a difference in the evolutionary stage of the clusters; Abell 1367 is at an earlier stage than the Coma cluster.
The physical properties and elemental abundances of the interstellar medium in galaxies during cosmic reionization are important for understanding the role of galaxies in this process. We report the ...Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array detection of an oxygen emission line at a wavelength of 88 micrometers from a galaxy at an epoch about 700 million years after the Big Bang. The oxygen abundance of this galaxy is estimated at about one-tenth that of the Sun. The nondetection of far-infrared continuum emission indicates a deficiency of interstellar dust in the galaxy. A carbon emission line at a wavelength of 158 micrometers is also not detected, implying an unusually small amount of neutral gas. These properties might allow ionizing photons to escape into the intergalactic medium.
We present evidence that a region of high effective Ly optical depth at z ∼ 5.7 is associated with an underdense region at the tail end of cosmic reionization. We carried out a survey of Lyman-break ...Galaxies (LBGs) using Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam in the field of the z = 5.98 quasar J0148+0600, whose spectrum presents an unusually long (∼160 cMpc) and opaque (τ 7) Ly trough at 5.5 ≤ z ≤ 5.9. LBG candidates were selected to lie within the redshift range of the trough, and the projected number densities were measured within 90 cMpc of the quasar sightline. The region within 8′ (or 19 cMpc) of the quasar position is the most underdense of the whole field. The significance of the presence of the void is estimated to be 99%. This is consistent with the significant deficit of Ly emitters (LAEs) at z = 5.72 reported by Becker et al. and suggests that the paucity of LAEs is not purely due to the removal of the Ly emission by the high opacity but reflects a real coherent underdensity of galaxies across the entire redshift range of the trough. These observations are consistent with scenarios in which large optical depth fluctuations arise due to fluctuations in the galaxy-dominant UV background or due to residual neutral islands that are expected from reionization that is completed at redshifts as low as z 5.5.
Cosmological simulations suggest a strong correlation between high optical-depth Ly absorbers, which arise from the intergalactic medium, and 3D mass overdensities on scales of 10-30 comoving Mpc. By ...examining the absorption spectra of ∼80,000 QSO sight lines over a volume of 0.1 Gpc3 in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III), we have identified an extreme overdensity, BOSS1441, which contains a rare group of strong Ly absorbers at . This absorber group is associated with six QSOs at the same redshift on a 30 comoving Mpc scale. Using Mayall/MOSAIC narrowband and broadband imaging, we detect Ly emitters (LAEs) down to and reveal a large-scale structure of LAEs in this field. Our follow-up LBT observations have spectroscopically confirmed 20 galaxies in the density peak. We show that BOSS1441 has an LAE overdensity of 10.8 2.6 on a 15 comoving Mpc scale, which could collapse to a massive cluster with M 1015 at . This overdensity is among the most massive large-scale structures at discovered to date.
We report the discovery of 15 quasars and bright galaxies at 5.7 < z< 6.9. This is the initial result from the Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-Luminosity Quasars project, which exploits the ...exquisite multiband imaging data produced by the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Strategic Program survey. The candidate selection is performed by combining several photometric approaches including a Bayesian probabilistic algorithm to reject stars and dwarfs. The spectroscopic identification was carried out with the Gran Telescopio Canarias and the Subaru Telescope for the first 80 deg super(2) of the survey footprint. The success rate of our photometric selection is quite high, approaching 100% at the brighter magnitudes (z sub(AB)< 23.5 mag). Our selection also recovered all the known high-z quasars on the HSC images. Among the 15 discovered objects, six are likely quasars, while the other six with interstellar absorption lines and in some cases narrow emission lines are likely bright Lyman-break galaxies. The remaining three objects have weak continua and very strong and narrow Lyalpha lines, which may be excited by ultraviolet light from both young stars and quasars. These results indicate that we are starting to see the steep rise of the luminosity function of z> or = 6 galaxies, compared with that of quasars, at magnitudes fainter than M sub(1450)~ -22 mag or z sub(AB)~ 24 mag. Follow-up studies of the discovered objects as well as further survey observations are ongoing.
ABSTRACT We present the discovery of three protoclusters at z ∼ 3-4 with spectroscopic confirmation in the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey Deep Fields. In these fields, we investigate ...the large-scale projected sky distribution of z ∼ 3-6 Lyman-break galaxies and identify 21 protocluster candidates from regions that are overdense at more than 4 overdensity significance. Based on cosmological simulations, it is expected that more than 76% of these candidates will evolve into a galaxy cluster of at least a halo mass of 1014 M at z = 0. We perform follow-up spectroscopy for eight of the candidates using Subaru/FOCAS, Keck II/DEIMOS, and Gemini-N/GMOS. In total we target 462 dropout candidates and obtain 138 spectroscopic redshifts. We confirm three real protoclusters at z = 3-4 with more than five members spectroscopically identified and find one to be an incidental overdense region by mere chance alignment. The other four candidate regions at z ∼ 5-6 require more spectroscopic follow-up in order to be conclusive. A z = 3.67 protocluster, which has 11 spectroscopically confirmed members, shows a remarkable core-like structure composed of a central small region (<0.5 physical Mpc) and an outskirts region (∼1.0 physical Mpc). The Ly equivalent widths of members of the protocluster are significantly smaller than those of field galaxies at the same redshift, while there is no difference in the UV luminosity distributions. These results imply that some environmental effects start operating as early as at z ∼ 4 along with the growth of the protocluster structure. This study provides an important benchmark for our analysis of protoclusters in the upcoming Subaru/HSC imaging survey and its spectroscopic follow-up with the Subaru/PFS that will detect thousands of protoclusters up to z ∼ 6.
We report 14 and 26 protocluster candidates at z = 5.7 and 6.6 over 14 and 16 deg2 areas, respectively, selected from 2230 (259) Ly emitters (LAEs) photometrically (spectroscopically) identified ...using Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) deep images (Keck, Subaru, and Magellan spectra, and literature data). Six out of the 40 protocluster candidates include one to 13 spectroscopically confirmed LAEs. We conduct Monte Carlo simulations to estimate how many protocluster candidates are found by chance for randomly distributed sources, and find that the effective number of protocluster candidates at z = 5.7 (6.6) is six (five). By comparing with the cosmological Ly radiative transfer (RT) model reproducing the LAEs with reionization effects, we find that more than half of these protocluster candidates are progenitors of present-day clusters with mass of . We then investigate the correlation between the LAE overdensity δ and the Ly rest-frame equivalent width , because the cosmological Ly RT model suggests that the slope of the -δ relation steepens toward the epoch of cosmic reionization (EoR), due to the existence of ionized bubbles around galaxy overdensities easing the escape of Ly emission from the partly neutral intergalactic medium. The available HSC data suggest that the slope of the -δ correlation does not evolve from the post-reionization epoch, z = 5.7, to the EoR, z = 6.6, beyond the moderately large statistical errors. There is a possibility that we could detect the evolution of the -δ relation from z = 5.7 to 7.3 using the upcoming HSC observations that will provide large samples of LAEs at z = 6.6-7.3.
We have carried out follow-up spectroscopy on three overdense regions of g- and r-dropout galaxies in the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey Deep Fields, finding two new protoclusters at z ...= 4.898 and 3.721 and a possible protocluster at z = 3.834. The z = 3.721 protocluster overlaps with a previously identified protocluster at z = 3.675. The redshift separation between these two protoclusters is Δz = 0.05, which is slightly larger than the size of typical protoclusters. Therefore, if they are not the progenitors of a >1015 M☉ halo, they would grow into closely located independent halos like a supercluster. The other protocluster at z = 4.898 is also surrounded by smaller galaxy groups. These systems including protoclusters and neighboring groups are regarded as the early phase of superclusters. We quantify the spatial distribution of member galaxies of the protoclusters at z = 3.675 and 3.721 by fitting triaxial ellipsoids, finding a tentative difference: one has a pancake-like shape, while the other is filamentary. This could indicate that these two protoclusters are in different stages of formation. We investigate the relation between redshift and the velocity dispersion of protoclusters, including other protoclusters from the literature, in order to compare their dynamical states. Although there is no significant systematic trend in the velocity dispersions of protoclusters with redshift, the distribution is skewed to higher velocity dispersion over the redshift range of z = 2-6. This could be interpreted as two phases of cluster formation, one dominated by the steady accretion of galaxies and the other by the merging between group-size halos, perhaps depending on the surrounding large-scale environments.
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