Discovery of Water Vapor in the High-Redshift Quasar APM 08279+5255 at Z=3.91

Abstract

We report a detection of the excited 220-211 rotational transition of para-H2O in APM 08279+5255 using the IRAM Plateau de Bure interferometer. At z = 3.91, this is the highest-redshift detection of interstellar water to date. From LVG modeling, we conclude that this transition is predominantly radiatively pumped and on its own does not provide a good estimate of the water abundance. However, additional water transitions are predicted to be detectable in this source, which would lead to an improved excitation model. We also present a sensitive upper limit for the HF J = 1 - 0 absorption toward APM 08279+5255. While the face-on geometry of this source is not favorable for absorption studies, the lack of HF absorption is still puzzling and may be indicative of a lower fluorine abundance at z = 3.91 compared with the Galactic ISM.

5 pages, 2 figures, to appear in The Astrophysical Journal Letters

References in corpus (6)

• Highly-excited CO emission in APM08279+5255 at z=3.9
• Molecular gas in extreme star-forming environments: the starbursts Arp220 and NGC6240 as case studies
• Imaging the Molecular Gas in a z=3.9 Quasar Host Galaxy at 0.3" Resolution: A Central, Sub-Kiloparsec Scale Star Formation Reservoir in APM 08279+5255
• Observation of H2O in a strongly lensed Herschel-ATLAS source at z=2.3
• Herschel/HIFI Observations of Hydrogen Fluoride Toward Sagittarius B2(M)
• Atomic Carbon in APM 08279+5255 at z=3.91

Cited by in corpus (19)

• Herschel/PACS spectroscopy of NGC 4418 and Arp 220: H2O, H2^{18}O, OH, ^{18}OH, O I, HCN and NH3
• Interstellar Hydrides
• H2O emission in high-z ultra-luminous infrared galaxies
• Submillimeter H2O and H2O+ emission in lensed ultra- and hyper-luminous infrared galaxies at z ~ 2-4
• Water vapor emission reveals a highly obscured, star forming nuclear region in the QSO host galaxy APM08279+5255 at z=3.9
• Modeling the H2O submillimeter emission in extragalactic sources
• An ALMA Early Science survey of molecular absorption lines toward PKS1830-211 -- Analysis of the absorption profiles
• An ALMA multi-line survey of the ISM in two quasar host-companion galaxy pairs at $z>6$
• Gravitational lensing reveals extreme dust-obscured star formation in quasar host galaxies
• The Water Vapor Spectrum of APM 08279+5255: X-Ray Heating and Infrared Pumping over Hundreds of Parsecs
• A proto-pseudobulge in ESO 320-G030 fed by a massive molecular inflow driven by a nuclear bar
• Discovery of Hydrogen Fluoride in the Cloverleaf Quasar at z = 2.56
• Stacked Average Far-Infrared Spectrum of Dusty Star-Forming Galaxies from the Herschel/SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectrometer
• SUNRISE: The rich molecular inventory of high-redshift dusty galaxies revealed by broadband spectral line surveys
• Unveiling the warm dense ISM in $z>6$ quasar host galaxies via water vapor emission
• Detection of H2O and OH+ in z>3 Hot Dust-Obscured Galaxies
• Etching glass in the early Universe: Luminous HF and water emission in a QSO-SMG pair at z=4.7
• Constraining the Active Galactic Nucleus and Starburst Properties of the IR-luminous Quasar Host Galaxy APM 08279+5255 at Redshift 4 with SOFIA
• The when and where of water in the history of the universe