An ultra-luminous quasar at \lowercase{$z=5.363$} with a ten billion solar mass black hole and a Meta-Rich DLA at \lowercase{$z\sim5$} [GA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.01765


We report the discovery of an ultra-luminous quasar J030642.51+185315.8 (hereafter J0306+1853) at redshift 5.363, which hosts a super-massive black hole (SMBH) with $M_{BH} = (1.07 \pm 0.27) \times10^{10}~M_\odot$. With an absolute magnitude $M_{1450}=-28.92$ and bolometric luminosity $L_{bol}\sim3.4\times10^{14} L_{\odot}$, J0306+1853 is one of the most luminous objects in the early Universe. It is not likely to be a beamed source based on its small flux variability, low radio loudness and normal broad emission lines. In addition, a $z=4.986$ Damped Ly$\alpha$ system (DLA) with $\rm [M/H]=-1.3\pm0.1$, among the most metal rich DLAs at $z \gtrsim 5$, is detected in the absorption spectrum of this quasar. This ultra-luminous quasar puts strong constraint on the bright-end of quasar luminosity function and massive-end of black hole mass function. It will provide a unique laboratory to the study of BH growth and the co-evolution between BH and host galaxy with multi-wavelength follow-up observations. The future high resolution spectra will give more insights to the DLA and other absorption systems along the line-of-sight of J0306+1853.

Read this paper on arXiv…

F. Wang, X. Wu, X. Fan, et. al.
Mon, 8 Jun 15
20/37

Comments: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL