Discovery of Merging Twin Quasars at z = 6.05
We report the discovery of two quasars at a redshift of z = 6.05 in the process of merging. They were serendipitously discovered from the deep multiband imaging data collected by the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Subaru Strategic Program survey. The quasars, HSC J121503.42−014858.7 (C1) and HSC J121503.55...
| Autores: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2024 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.csic.es:10261/381607 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/381607 https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85190157304 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Double quasars Quasars Reionization High-redshift galaxies Active galactic nuclei Galaxy mergers Supermassive black holes http://astrothesaurus.org/uat/406 http://astrothesaurus.org/uat/1319 http://astrothesaurus.org/uat/1383 http://astrothesaurus.org/uat/734 http://astrothesaurus.org/uat/16 http://astrothesaurus.org/uat/608 http://astrothesaurus.org/uat/1663 |
| Sumario: | We report the discovery of two quasars at a redshift of z = 6.05 in the process of merging. They were serendipitously discovered from the deep multiband imaging data collected by the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Subaru Strategic Program survey. The quasars, HSC J121503.42−014858.7 (C1) and HSC J121503.55−014859.3 (C2), both have luminous (>1043 erg s−1) Lyα emission with a clear broad component (full width at half maximum >1000 km s−1). The rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) absolute magnitudes are M 1450 = − 23.106 ± 0.017 (C1) and −22.662 ± 0.024 (C2). Our crude estimates of the black hole masses provide log ( M BH / M ⊙ ) = 8.1 ± 0.3 in both sources. The two quasars are separated by 12 kpc in projected proper distance, bridged by a structure in the rest-UV light suggesting that they are undergoing a merger. This pair is one of the most distant merging quasars reported to date, providing crucial insight into galaxy and black hole build-up in the hierarchical structure formation scenario. A companion paper will present the gas and dust properties captured by Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations, which provide additional evidence for and detailed measurements of the merger, and also demonstrate that the two sources are not gravitationally lensed images of a single quasar. |
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