A CEERS Discovery of an Accreting Supermassive Black Hole 570 Myr after the Big Bang: Identifying a Progenitor of Massive z > 6 Quasars

Date

2023/08/01

Authors

Larson, Rebecca L., Finkelstein, Steven D., Kocevski, Dale A., Hutchison, Taylor R., Trump, Jonathan, Haro, Pablo Arrabal, Bromm, Volker J., Cleri, Nikko, Dickinson, Mark, Fujimoto, Seiji S., Kartaltepe, Jeyhan M., Koekemoer, Anton, Papovich, Casey, Pirzkal, Nor, Tacchella, Sandro A., Zavala, Jorge, Bagley, Micaela, Behroozi, Peter B., Champagne, Jaclyn W., Cole, Justin, Jung, Intae M., Morales, Alexa, Yang, Guang, Zhang, Haowen, Zitrin, Adi O., Amorin, Ricardo, Burgarella, Denis M., Casey, Caitlin, Ortiz, Oscar A. Chavez G., Cox, Isabella, Chworowsky, Katherine, Fontana, Adriano, Gawiser, Eric, Grazian, Andrea A., Grogin, Norman, Harish, Santosh P., Hathi, Nimish, Hirschmann, Michaela W., Holwerda, Benne, Juneau, Stephanie, Leung, Gene C. K. A., Lucas, Ray J., McGrath, Elizabeth G., Perez-Gonzalez, Pablo R., Rigby, Jane, Seille, Lise-Marie C., Simons, Raymond, de la Vega, Alexander J., Weiner, Benjamin M., Wilkins, Stephen, Yung, L. Y. Aaron

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

IOP Publishing Ltd

Abstract

We report the discovery of an accreting supermassive black hole at z = 8.679. This galaxy, denoted here as CEERS_1019, was previously discovered as a Ly & alpha,-break galaxy by Hubble with a Ly & alpha, redshift from Keck. As part of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey, we have observed this source with JWST/NIRSpec, MIRI, NIRCam, and NIRCam/WFSS and uncovered a plethora of emission lines. The H & beta, line is best fit by a narrow plus a broad component, where the latter is measured at 2.5 & sigma, with an FWHM & SIM,1200 km s(-1). We conclude this originates in the broadline region of an active galactic nucleus (AGN). This is supported by the presence of weak high-ionization lines (N V, N IV], and C III]), as well as a spatial point-source component. The implied mass of the black hole (BH) is log (M (BH)/M (& ODOT,)) = 6.95 & PLUSMN, 0.37, and we estimate that it is accreting at 1.2 & PLUSMN, 0.5 times the Eddington limit. The 1-8 & mu,m photometric spectral energy distribution shows a continuum dominated by starlight and constrains the host galaxy to be massive (log M/M-& ODOT, & SIM,9.5) and highly star-forming (star formation rate, or SFR & SIM, 30 M-& ODOT, yr(-1), log sSFR & SIM, - 7.9 yr(-1)). The line ratios show that the gas is metal-poor (Z/Z (& ODOT,) & SIM, 0.1), dense (n (e) & SIM, 10(3) cm(-3)), and highly ionized (log U & SIM, - 2.1). We use this present highest-redshift AGN discovery to place constraints on BH seeding models and find that a combination of either super-Eddington accretion from stellar seeds or Eddington accretion from very massive BH seeds is required to form this object.

Description

Keywords

ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI, EMISSION-LINE GALAXIES, INFRARED SPECTROGRAPH NIRSPEC, COSMOLOGY LEGACY SURVEY, LY-ALPHA TRANSMISSION, EGS DEEP FIELD, TO 7 GALAXIES, STAR-FORMATION, STELLAR-MASS, SEMIANALYTIC FORECASTS

Citation

URI

https://publicacionesabiertas.userena.cl/handle/123456789/135

Collections

Astronomía