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  • A Catastrophic Failure to B...
    Schramm, M.; Rujopakarn, W.; Silverman, J. D.; Nagao, T.; Schulze, A.; Akiyama, M.; Ikeda, H.; Ohta, K.; Kotilainen, J.

    The Astrophysical journal, 08/2019, Volume: 881, Issue: 2
    Journal Article

    We present observations of the stellar and molecular gas mass of SDSS J163909+282447.1, a luminous quasar at z = 3.84 with an extreme mass for a supermassive black hole (SMBH; MBH = 2.5 × 1010 M ). The local SMBH mass-galaxy mass relation predicts a massive host galaxy with Mstellar 1012 M for this quasar. Based on sensitive near-infrared imaging with adaptive optics (AO) using Subaru, the stellar light from the host is undetected, thus resulting in an upper limit on the mass, Mstellar < 6.3 × 1010 M , a factor of 16 less than expected. The CO(4 − 3) observations at 0 2 resolution using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array indicate a molecular gas mass from CO of M and a dynamical mass within a radius of 0.45 0.2 kpc of M . With the SMBH accounting for ∼60% of the dynamical mass and considering the amount of molecular gas, we find an upper limit on the stellar mass to be Mstellar 1.5 × 1010 M , a value consistent with the limit from Subaru AO imaging. Based on these results, this SMBH has one of the largest host stellar mass deficits known given its SMBH mass; hence, it is unclear how to grow a SMBH/host galaxy to such a state since there is not enough molecular gas available to form a substantial amount of stellar mass to make up for the difference. Any physical model is likely to require an earlier phase of super-Eddington accretion onto the SMBH.