Gemini GNIRS near-infrared spectroscopy of 50 quasars at z>~5.7

Abstract

We report initial results from a large Gemini program to observe z>~5.7 quasars with GNIRS near-IR spectroscopy. Our sample includes 50 quasars with simultaneous ~0.85-2.5 micron spectra covering the rest-frame ultraviolet and major broad emission lines from Ly-alpha to MgII. We present spectral measurements for these quasars and compare to their lower-redshift counterparts at z=1.5-2.3. We find that when quasar luminosity is matched, there are no significant differences between the rest-UV spectra of z>~5.7 quasars and the low-z comparison sample. High-z quasars have similar continuum and emission line properties and occupy the same region in the black hole mass and luminosity space as the comparison sample, accreting at an average Eddington ratio of ~0.3. There is no evidence for super-Eddington accretion or hypermassive (>10^10 Msun) black holes within our sample. We find a mild excess of quasars with weak CIV lines relative to the control sample. Our results, corroborating earlier studies but with better statistics, demonstrate that these high-z quasars are already mature systems of accreting supermassive black holes operating with the same physical mechanisms as those at lower redshifts.

arXiv commentreplaced with the accepted version (ApJ); improved the fitting results and replaced all figures and tables (w/ minor changes); conclusions unchanged

References in corpus (118)

• The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS)
• Composite Quasar Spectra From the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Central Masses and Broad-Line Region Sizes of Active Galactic Nuclei. II. A Homogeneous Analysis of a Large Reverberation-Mapping Database
• Cosmic-Ray Rejection by Laplacian Edge Detection
• A Cosmological Framework for the Co-Evolution of Quasars, Supermassive Black Holes, and Elliptical Galaxies: I. Galaxy Mergers & Quasar Activity
• A Catalog of Quasar Properties from SDSS DR7
• A luminous quasar at a redshift of z = 7.085
• Constraining the Evolution of the Ionizing Background and the Epoch of Reionization with z ~ 6 Quasars II: A Sample of 19 Quasars
• Determining Central Black Hole Masses in Distant Active Galaxies and Quasars. II. Improved Optical and UV Scaling Relationships
• Spectral Energy Distributions and Multiwavelength Selection of Type 1 Quasars
• An 800-million-solar-mass black hole in a significantly neutral Universe at redshift 7.5
• Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Quasar Sample
• A Survey of z>5.8 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey I: Discovery of Three New Quasars and the Spatial Density of Luminous Quasars at z~6
• Observational constraints on Cosmic Reionization
• Formation of Supermassive Black Holes
• A Survey of z>5.7 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey II: Discovery of Three Additional Quasars at z>6
• An ultra-luminous quasar with a twelve-billion-solar-mass black hole at redshift 6.30
• Optimal Techniques in Two-dimensional Spectroscopy: Background Subtraction for the 21st Century
• The cosmological evolution of quasar black-hole masses
• An Empirical Ultraviolet Template for Iron Emission in Quasars as Derived from I Zw 1
• Biases in Virial Black Hole Masses: An SDSS Perspective
• The Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey: nine new quasars and the luminosity function at redshift 6
• The First Galaxies
• Obscured Active Galactic Nuclei
• Unification of Luminous Type 1 Quasars through CIV Emission
• Mass Functions of the Active Black Holes in Distant Quasars from the Large Bright Quasar Survey, the Bright Quasar Survey, and the Color-Selected Sample of the SDSS Fall Equatorial Stripe
• A Catalog of Broad Absorption Line Quasars in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 5
• Star Formation and Gas Kinematics of Quasar Host Galaxies at z~6: New insights from ALMA
• A Survey of z>5.7 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III: Discovery of Five Additional Quasars
• The Pan-STARRS1 distant z>5.6 quasar survey: more than 100 quasars within the first Gyr of the universe
• Eddington-limited accretion and the black hole mass function at redshift 6
• The Final SDSS High-Redshift Quasar Sample of 52 Quasars at z>5.7
• The Radiative Efficiency of Accretion Flows in Individual AGN
• Eigenvector 1: An Optimal Correlation Space for Active Galactic Nuclei
• Physical properties of 15 quasars at $z\gtrsim 6.5$
• An ALMA [CII] survey of 27 quasars at z>5.94
• Formation of z ~ 6 quasars from hierarchical galaxy mergers
• Molecular Gas in the Host Galaxy of a Quasar at Redshift z=6.42
• The Discovery of a Luminous z=5.80 Quasar from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Comparing Single-Epoch Virial Black Hole Mass Estimators for Luminous Quasars
• Improved redshifts for SDSS quasar spectra
• Four quasars above redshift 6 discovered by the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey
• What controls the C IV line profile in active galactic nuclei?
• Molecular Gas in Redshift 6 Quasar Host Galaxies
• A Kiloparsec-Scale Hyper-Starburst in a Quasar Host Less than 1 Gigayear after the Big Bang
• Gemini Near-infrared Spectroscopy of Luminous z~6 Quasars: Chemical Abundances, Black Hole Masses, and MgII Absorption
• Black Hole Growth to z = 2 - I: Improved Virial Methods for Measuring M_BH and L/L_Edd
• A strong redshift dependence of the broad absorption line quasar fraction
• Black hole masses and enrichment of z ~ 6 SDSS quasars
• Black hole formation in the early universe
• Estimating Black Hole Masses in Active Galactic Nuclei Using the MgII 2800 Emission Line
• Evidence for non-evolving FeII/MgII ratios in rapidly accreting z~6 QSOs
• Rapidly star-forming galaxies adjacent to quasars at redshifts exceeding 6
• Black hole mass estimates and emission-line properties of a sample of redshift z>6.5 quasars
• Subaru high-z exploration of low-luminosity quasars (SHELLQs). I. Discovery of 15 quasars and bright galaxies at 5.7 < z < 6.9
• Early Growth and Efficient Accretion of Massive Black Holes at High Redshift
• Bright [CII] and dust emission in three z>6.6 quasar host galaxies observed by ALMA
• Correcting CIV-Based Virial Black Hole Masses
• A Survey of z~6 Quasars in the SDSS Deep Stripe: I. a Flux-Limited Sample at z_{AB}<21
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Velocity Shifts of Quasar Emission Lines
• The Demographics of Broad Line Quasars in the Mass-Luminosity Plane II. Black Hole Mass and Eddington Ratio Functions
• Constraints on Black Hole Growth, Quasar Lifetimes, and Eddington Ratio Distributions from the SDSS Broad Line Quasar Black Hole Mass Function
• A Survey of z~6 Quasars in the SDSS Deep Stripe. II. Discovery of Six Quasars at z_{AB}>21
• Black Hole Mass Estimates Based on CIV are Consistent with Those Based on the Balmer Lines
• X-ray Insights into the Nature of PHL 1811 Analogs and Weak Emission-Line Quasars: Unification with a Geometrically Thick Accretion Disk?
• The identification of z-dropouts in Pan-STARRS1: three quasars at 6.5<z<6.7
• High-Redshift SDSS Quasars with Weak Emission Lines
• The UKIRT Hemisphere Survey: Definition and J-band Data Release
• Iron Emission in the z=6.4 Quasar SDSS J114816.64+525150.3
• Scientific Discovery with the James Webb Space Telescope
• Star formation rate and dynamical mass of 10^8 solar mass black hole host galaxies at redshift 6
• A downturn in intergalactic CIV as redshift 6 is approached
• 2MASS Reveals a Large Intrinsic Fraction of BALQSOs
• Discovery of eight z ~ 6 quasars from Pan-STARRS1
• Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-Luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs). II. Discovery of 32 Quasars and Luminous Galaxies at 5.7 < z < 6.8
• Super-Eddington growth of the first black holes
• Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-Luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs). IV. Discovery of 41 Quasars and Luminous Galaxies at 5.7 < z < 6.9
• Eight new luminous z > 6 quasars selected via SED model fitting of VISTA, WISE and Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Observations
• The Discovery of a High-redshift Quasar without Emission Lines from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Commissioning Data
• The Demographics of Broad-Line Quasars in the Mass-Luminosity Plane. I. Testing FWHM-Based Virial Black Hole Masses
• Six more quasars at redshift 6 discovered by the Canada-France High-z Quasar Survey
• Constraining the radio-loud fraction of quasars at z>5.5
• Are Outflows Biasing Single-Epoch CIV Black Hole Mass Estimates?
• Imaging Atomic and Highly Excited Molecular Gas in a z=6.42 Quasar Host Galaxy: Copious Fuel for an Eddington-Limited Starburst at the End of Cosmic Reionization
• Candidate Type II Quasars at 2 < z < 4.3 in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III
• A survey of luminous high-redshift quasars with SDSS and WISE. I. target selection and optical spectroscopy
• A Population of X-ray Weak Quasars: PHL 1811 Analogs at High Redshift
• A wide dispersion in star formation rate and dynamical mass of 10^8 solar mass black hole host galaxies at redshift 6
• The X-ray properties of z$\sim$6 luminous quasars
• The Formation of the First Massive Black Holes
• Discovery of a z=6.1 Radio-Loud Quasar in the NDWFS
• Is there an upper limit to black hole masses?
• How Big Can a Black Hole Grow?
• Rest-frame Optical Properties of Luminous 1.5<z<3.5 Quasars: the Hbeta-[OIII] Region
• A Large Sample of BL Lacs from SDSS and FIRST
• The discovery of the first luminous z~6 quasar in the UKIDSS Large Area Survey
• Discovery of a redshift 6.13 quasar in the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey
• Weak-Line Quasars at High Redshift: Extremely High Accretion Rates or Anemic Broad-Line Regions?
• The Nuclear Near-Infrared Spectral Properties of Nearby Galaxies
• CO (2-1) Line Emission in Redshift 6 Quasar Host Galaxies
• Weak Emission Line Quasars in the Context of a Modified Baldwin Effect
• On the Accretion Rates and Radiative Efficiencies of the Highest Redshift Quasars
• The Discovery of Three New z>5 Quasars in the AGN and Galaxy Evolution Survey
• Discovery of Eight z ~ 6 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Overlap Regions
• The First High Redshift Quasar from Pan-STARRS
• Luminous WISE-selected Obscured, Unobscured, and Red Quasars in Stripe 82
• An Improved Method for Using MgII to Estimate Black Hole Masses in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Detection of $1.6\times 10^{10}$ M${}_{\odot }$ of molecular gas in the host galaxy of the $z=5.77$ SDSS quasar J0927+2001
• Multiwavelength Observations of Radio-quiet Quasars with Weak Emission Lines
• Rehabilitating CIV-based black hole mass estimates in quasars
• Extending the Calibration of CIV-Based Single-Epoch Black Hole Mass Estimators for Active Galactic Nuclei
• Calibration and Limitations of the Mg II line-based Black Hole Masses
• Chandra X-rays from the redshift 7.54 quasar ULAS J1342+0928
• Discovery of a new high redshift QSO at z=5.96 with the Subaru telescope
• Can we improve CIV-based single epoch black hole mass estimations?
• A Quasar Discovered at redshift 6.6 from Pan-STARRS1
• The Infrared Medium-deep Survey. IV. Low Eddington Ratio of A Faint Quasar at $z\sim 6$: Not Every Supermassive Black Hole is Growing Fast in the Early Universe
• Formation of the First Black Holes: Current observational status

Cited by in corpus (125)

• The Assembly of the First Massive Black Holes
• Pōniuā'ena: A Luminous $z=7.5$ Quasar Hosting a 1.5 Billion Solar Mass Black Hole
• Hydrogen reionisation ends by $z=5.3$: Lyman-$\alpha$ optical depth measured by the XQR-30 sample
• A Significantly Neutral Intergalactic Medium Around the Luminous z=7 Quasar J0252-0503
• Kiloparsec-scale ALMA Imaging of [CII] and Dust Continuum Emission of 27 Quasar Host Galaxies at z~6
• Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-Luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs). VI. Black Hole Mass Measurements of Six Quasars at 6.1<z<6.7
• A Candidate of a Least-Massive Black Hole at the First 1.1 Billion Years of the Universe
• Implications for the Hubble tension from the ages of the oldest astrophysical objects
• The X-shooter/ALMA Sample of Quasars in the Epoch of Reionization. II. Black Hole Masses, Eddington Ratios, and the Formation of the First Quasars
• The REQUIEM Survey I: A Search for Extended Ly-Alpha Nebular Emission Around 31 z>5.7 Quasars
• The X-SHOOTER/ALMA sample of Quasars in the Epoch of Reionization. I. NIR spectral modeling, iron enrichment and broad emission line properties
• Three new VHS-DES Quasars at 6.7 < z < 6.9 and Emission Line Properties at z > 6.5
• EIGER V. Characterizing the Host Galaxies of Luminous Quasars at $z\gtrsim 6$
• Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-Luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs) VIII. A less biased view of the early co-evolution of black holes and host galaxies
• The X-ray properties of $z>6$ quasars: no evident evolution of accretion physics in the first Gyr of the Universe
• The low-end of the black hole mass function at cosmic dawn
• The ALMA view of the high-redshift relation between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies
• JADES: A large population of obscured, narrow line AGN at high redshift
• The discovery of a highly accreting, radio-loud quasar at z=6.82
• Euclid preparation: V. Predicted yield of redshift 7<z<9 quasars from the wide survey
• Morphologies of Galaxies at $z\gtrsim 9$ Uncovered by JWST/NIRCam Imaging: Cosmic Size Evolution and an Identification of an Extremely Compact Bright Galaxy at $z\sim 12$
• XQR-30: the ultimate XSHOOTER quasar sample at the reionization epoch
• 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
• Trinity I: Self-Consistently Modeling the Dark Matter Halo-Galaxy-Supermassive Black Hole Connection from $z=0-10$
• Chasing the Tail of Cosmic Reionization with Dark Gap Statistics in the Ly$\alpha$ Forest over $5<z<6$
• Widespread, strong outflows in XQR-30 quasars at the Reionisation epoch
• Spatially Resolved Interstellar Medium and Highly-Excited Dense Molecular Gas in the Most Luminous Quasar at z=6.327
• The Faint End of the Quasar Luminosity Function at $z\sim 5$ from the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey
• Catalogues of Active Galactic Nuclei From Gaia and unWISE Data
• New Constraints on Quasar Evolution: Broad Line Velocity Shifts over $1.5\lesssim z\lesssim 7.5$
• BASS XXV: DR2 Broad-line Based Black Hole Mass Estimates and Biases from Obscuration
• Co-evolution of massive black holes and their host galaxies at high redshift: discrepancies from six cosmological simulations and the key role of JWST
• Seeds Don't Sink: Even Massive Black Hole "Seeds" Cannot Migrate to Galaxy Centers Efficiently
• Making a supermassive star by stellar bombardment
• Three Lyman-alpha emitting galaxies within a quasar proximity zone at z=5.8
• No Redshift Evolution in the Broad Line Region Metallicity up to z=7.54: Deep NIR Spectroscopy of ULAS J1342+0928
• A comparison of quasar emission reconstruction techniques for $z\ge 5.0$ Lyman-$\alpha$ and Lyman-$\beta$ transmission
• XQR-30: Black Hole Masses and Accretion Rates of 42 z>6 Quasars
• Damping Wing-Like Features in the Stacked Ly$\alpha$ Forest: Potential Neutral Hydrogen Islands at $z<6$
• The Pan-STARRS1 z>5.6 quasar survey II: Discovery of 55 Quasars at 5.6<z<6.5
• The first measurement of the quasar lifetime distribution
• Evolving parsec-scale radio structure in the most distant blazar known
• Definitive upper bound on the negligible contribution of quasars to cosmic reionization
• Testing AGN outflow and accretion models with CIV and HeII emission line demographics in z=2 quasars
• Constraining the quasar radio-loud fraction at $z\sim 6$ with deep radio observations
• Probing the Nature of High Redshift Weak Emission Line Quasars: A Young Quasar with a Starburst Host Galaxy
• Formation of supermassive black hole seeds in nuclear star clusters via gas accretion and runaway collisions
• Discovery of 24 radio-bright quasars at $4.9\le z\le 6.6$ using low-frequency radio observations
• HYPerluminous quasars at the Epoch of ReionizatION (HYPERION). A new regime for the X-ray nuclear properties of the first quasars
• The Pan-STARRS1 $\mathbf{z}>5.6$ Quasar Survey: III. The $\mathbf{z}\approx 6$ Quasar Luminosity Function
• DESI z >~ 5 Quasar Survey. I. A First Sample of 400 New Quasars at z ~ 4.7-6.6
• Metallicity in Quasar Broad Line Regions at Redshift $\sim$ 6
• A quasar-galaxy merger at $z\sim 6.2$: black hole mass and quasar properties from the NIRSpec spectrum
• Limits to Rest-Frame Ultraviolet Emission From Far-Infrared-Luminous z~6 Quasar Hosts
• Chemical Abundance of z~6 Quasar Broad-Line Regions in the XQR-30 Sample
• The fraction and kinematics of broad absorption line quasars across cosmic time
• Exploring the Hubble Tension and Spatial Curvature from the Ages of Old Astrophysical Objects
• Demographics of z ~ 6 Quasars in the Black Hole Mass-Luminosity Plane
• Placing High-Redshift Quasars in Perspective: a Catalog of Spectroscopic Properties from the Gemini Near Infrared Spectrograph -- Distant Quasar Survey
• Effect of mass loss due to stellar winds on the formation of supermassive black hole seeds in dense nuclear star clusters
• Modelling the AGN broad line region using single-epoch spectra II. Nearby AGN
• Dating individual quasars with the HeII proximity effect
• Potential of commercial SiN MPW platforms for developing mid/high-resolution integrated photonic spectrographs for astronomy
• Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-Luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs). XI. Proximity Zone Analysis for Faint Quasar Spectra at z~6
• On the Connection between Supermassive Black Hole and Galaxy Growth in the Reionization Epoch
• The Assembly of Black Hole Mass and Luminosity Functions of High-redshift Quasars via Multiple Accretion Episodes
• Chandra and Magellan/FIRE follow-up observations of PSO167-13: an X-ray weak QSO at $z=6.515$
• New quasar proximity zone size measurements at $z\sim 6$ using the enlarged XQR-30 sample
• New Radio-Loud QSOs at the end of the Re-ionisation Epoch
• Strong Mg II and Fe II Absorbers at 2.2 < z < 6.0
• Resolving the interstellar medium in the nuclear region of two z=5.78 quasar host galaxies with ALMA
• A Thirty-Four Billion Solar Mass Black Hole in SMSS J2157-3602, the Most Luminous Known Quasar
• TRINITY II: The Luminosity-dependent Bias of the Supermassive Black Hole Mass--Galaxy Mass Relation for Bright Quasars at $z=6$
• Dust-driven wind as a model of Broad Absorption Line quasars
• The physical origin for spatially large scatter of IGM opacity at the end of reionization: the IGM Ly$\alpha$ opacity-galaxy density relation
• Deep XMM-Newton Observations of an X-ray Weak, Broad Absorption Line Quasar at $z=6.5$
• Radio Jet Proper-motion Analysis of Nine Distant Quasars above Redshift 3.5
• Pure Density Evolution of the Ultraviolet Quasar Luminosity Function at $2\lesssim z\lesssim 6$
• The central engine of the highest redshift blazar
• The SRG/eROSITA All-Sky Survey: X-ray beacons at late cosmic dawn
• UNCOVERing the High-redshift AGN Population among Extreme UV Line Emitters
• Conditions for direct black hole seed collapse near a radio-loud quasar 1 Gyr after the Big Bang
• What do observations tell us about the highest-redshift supermassive black holes?
• Shedding New Light on Weak Emission-Line Quasars in the C${}_{\mathrm{IV}}$-H$\beta$ Parameter Space
• SHELLQs. Bridging the Gap: JWST Unveils Obscured Quasars in the Most Luminous Galaxies at z > 6
• The cold molecular gas in z$\gtrsim$6 quasar host galaxies
• Chandra Detection of Three X-ray Bright Quasars at z>5
• Molecular gas and dust properties in $z>7$ quasar hosts
• A powerful (and likely young) radio-loud quasar at z=5.3
• Constraints on the X-ray Luminosity Function of AGN at z=5.7-6.4 with the Extragalactic Serendipitous Swift Survey
• The extremely X-ray luminous radio-loud quasar CFHQS J142952+544717 at $z=6.18$ under Chandra high-angular resolution lens
• A Generative Model for Quasar Spectra
• An X-ray fading, UV brightening QSO at $z\approx 6$
• Discovery and characterization of 25 new quasars at 4.6 < z < 6.9 from wide-field multi-band surveys
• Multi-wavelength properties of three new radio-powerful $z\sim 5.6$ quasi-stellar objects discovered from RACS
• High Star Formation Rates of Low Eddington Ratio Quasars at $z\gtrsim 6$
• Optical and near-infrared spectroscopy of quasars at $z>6.5$: public data release and composite spectrum
• The Infrared Medium-deep Survey. IX. Discovery of Two New $z\sim 6$ Quasars and Space Density down to $M_{1450}\sim -23.5$ mag
• Comprehensive view on a $z\sim 6.5$ radio-loud QSO: from the radio to the optical/NIR to the X-ray band
• When Spectral Modeling Meets Convolutional Networks: A Method for Discovering Reionization-era Lensed Quasars in Multi-band Imaging Data
• The near-infrared SED of blue quasars: what drives the evolution of the dusty torus?
• Evidence that Eddington ratio depends upon a supermassive black hole's mass and redshift: Implications for radiative efficiency
• Monster radio jet (>66 kpc) observed in quasar at z$\sim$5
• HYPERION: broad-band X-ray-to-near-infrared emission of Quasars in the first billion years of the Universe
• HYPERION. Shedding light on the first luminous quasars: A correlation between UV disc winds and X-ray continuum
• Euclid: The potential of slitless infrared spectroscopy: A z=5.4 quasar and new ultracool dwarfs
• Revealing faint compact radio jets at redshifts above 5 with very long baseline interferometry
• JWST's PEARLS: A z=6 quasar in a train-wreck galaxy merger system
• The Dawn of Black Holes
• A method for checking high-redshift identification of radio AGNs
• Discovery of two quasars at $z=5$ from the OGLE Survey
• QSO MUSEUM III: the circumgalactic medium in Ly$\alpha$ emission around 120 $z\sim 3$ quasars covering the SDSS parameter space. Witnessing the instantaneous AGN feedback on halo scales
• Shedding the envelope: JWST reveals a kiloparsec-scale [OIII]-weak Balmer shell around a z=7.64 quasar
• Probing the rapid formation of black holes and their galaxy hosts in QSOs
• Multi-phase investigation of outflows in the circumgalactic and interstellar media of luminous quasars at z~5
• Extreme Galaxy-scale Outflows Are Frequent among Luminous Early Quasars
• Euclid: Discovery of 31 new quasars at $6.6<z<7.8$
• Tidal disruption event rates across cosmic time: forecasts for LSST, Roman, and JWST and their constraints on the supermassive black hole mass function
• A stellar dynamical mass measurement of an inactive black hole at redshift 2
• Signatures of Exploding Supermassive PopIII Stars at High Redshift in JWST, EUCLID and Roman Space Telescope
• Estimating the spins of supermassive black holes in distant ultraluminous quasars
• The Contribution of AGN Accretion Disks to Hydrogen Reionization
• A Comprehensive JWST/NIRSpec Census of Broad-line Active Galactic Nuclei: Faint, Low-mass Accretors and a Population of Little Red Dots
• Preliminary cosmological results using extreme accretors Quasar formalism
• A Super-Eddington, Lensing-Magnified Quasar at $z=5.07$ observed with JWST