학술논문
A SPectroscopic Survey of Biased Halos in the Reionization Era (ASPIRE): A First Look at the Rest-frame Optical Spectra of z > 6.5 Quasars Using JWST
Document Type
article
Author
Jinyi Yang; Feige Wang; Xiaohui Fan; Joseph F. Hennawi; Aaron J. Barth; Eduardo Bañados; Fengwu Sun; Weizhe Liu; Zheng Cai; Linhua Jiang; Zihao Li; Masafusa Onoue; Jan-Torge Schindler; Yue Shen; Yunjing Wu; Aklant K. Bhowmick; Rebekka Bieri; Laura Blecha; Sarah Bosman; Jaclyn B. Champagne; Luis Colina; Thomas Connor; Tiago Costa; Frederick B. Davies; Roberto Decarli; Gisella De Rosa; Alyssa B. Drake; Eiichi Egami; Anna-Christina Eilers; Analis E. Evans; Emanuele Paolo Farina; Melanie Habouzit; Zoltan Haiman; Xiangyu Jin; Hyunsung D. Jun; Koki Kakiichi; Yana Khusanova; Girish Kulkarni; Federica Loiacono; Alessandro Lupi; Chiara Mazzucchelli; Zhiwei Pan; Sofía Rojas-Ruiz; Michael A. Strauss; Wei Leong Tee; Benny Trakhtenbrot; Maxime Trebitsch; Bram Venemans; Marianne Vestergaard; Marta Volonteri; Fabian Walter; Zhang-Liang Xie; Minghao Yue; Haowen Zhang; Huanian Zhang; Siwei Zou
Source
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol 951, Iss 1, p L5 (2023)
Subject
Language
English
ISSN
2041-8213
2041-8205
2041-8205
Abstract
Studies of rest-frame optical emission in quasars at z > 6 have historically been limited by the wavelengths accessible by ground-based telescopes. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) now offers the opportunity to probe this emission deep into the reionization epoch. We report the observations of eight quasars at z > 6.5 using the JWST/NIRCam Wide Field Slitless Spectroscopy as a part of the “A SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era (ASPIRE)” program. Our JWST spectra cover the quasars’ emission between rest frame ∼4100 and 5100 Å. The profiles of these quasars’ broad H β emission lines span a full width at half maximum from 3000 to 6000 km s ^−1 . The H β -based virial black hole (BH) masses, ranging from 0.6 to 2.1 billion solar masses, are generally consistent with their Mg ii -based BH masses. The new measurements based on the more reliable H β tracer thus confirm the existence of a billion solar-mass BHs in the reionization epoch. In the observed [O iii ] λ λ 4960,5008 doublets of these luminous quasars, broad components are more common than narrow core components (≤ 1200 km s ^−1 ), and only one quasar shows stronger narrow components than broad. Two quasars exhibit significantly broad and blueshifted [O iii ] emission, thought to trace galactic-scale outflows, with median velocities of −610 and −1430 km s ^−1 relative to the [C ii ] 158 μ m line. All eight quasars show strong optical Fe ii emission and follow the eigenvector 1 relations defined by low-redshift quasars. The entire ASPIRE program will eventually cover 25 quasars and provide a statistical sample for the studies of the BHs and quasar spectral properties.