Ly$\alpha$ Halos Around $z\sim 6$ Quasars

Abstract

We present deep MUSE observations of five quasars within the first Gyr of the Universe ($z\gtrsim 6$), four of which display extended Ly$\alpha$ halos. After PSF-subtraction, we reveal halos surrounding two quasars for the first time, as well as confirming the presence of two more halos for which tentative detections exist in long-slit spectroscopic observations and narrow-band imaging. The four Ly$\alpha$ halos presented here are diverse in morphology and size, they each display spatial asymmetry, and none are centred on the position of the quasar. Spectra of the diffuse halos demonstrate that none are dramatically offset in velocity from the systemic redshift of the quasars ($\Delta$ v $<200$ kms${}^{-1}$), however each halo shows a broad Ly$\alpha$ line, with a velocity width of order $\sim 1000$ kms${}^{-1}$. Total Ly$\alpha$ luminosities range between $\sim$ $2\times 10^{43}$ erg s${}^{-1}$ and $\sim$ $2\times 10^{44}$ erg s${}^{-1}$, reaching maximum radial extents of $13-30$ pkpc from the quasar positions. We find larger sizes and higher Ly$\alpha$ luminosities than previous literature results at this redshift, but find no correlation between the quasar properties and the Ly$\alpha$ halo, suggesting that the detected emission is most closely related to the physical properties of the circum-galactic medium

19 pages, Accepted for publication in ApJ

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• Spatially resolved Lyman-$\alpha$ emission around radio bright quasars
• The Study of Circumgalactic Medium with Quasar Pairs
• The host galaxies of radio-loud quasars at z>5 with ALMA
• The Decoupled Kinematics of high-z QSO Host Galaxies and their Lya halos
• Search for extended Lyman-$\alpha$ emission around 9k quasars at z=2-3
• Circumgalactic Ly$\alpha$ Nebulae in Overdense Quasar Pair Regions Observed with the Palomar Cosmic Web Imager
• Quasar lifetime measurements from extended Ly$\alpha$ nebulae at $z\sim 6$
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