A Thirty-Four Billion Solar Mass Black Hole in SMSS J2157-3602, the Most Luminous Known Quasar

Abstract

From near-infrared spectroscopic measurements of the MgII emission line doublet, we estimate the black hole (BH) mass of the quasar, SMSS J215728.21-360215.1, as being (3.4 +/- 0.6) x 10^10 M_sun and refine the redshift of the quasar to be z=4.692. SMSS J2157 is the most luminous known quasar, with a 3000A luminosity of (4.7 +/- 0.5) x 10^47 erg/s and an estimated bolometric luminosity of 1.6 x 10^48 erg/s, yet its Eddington ratio is only ~0.4. Thus, the high luminosity of this quasar is a consequence of its extremely large BH -- one of the most massive BHs at z > 4.

arXiv comment7 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (50)

• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• Gaia Data Release 2. Summary of the contents and survey properties
• The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE): Mission Description and Initial On-orbit Performance
• The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS)
• K-corrections and filter transformations in the ultraviolet, optical, and near infrared
• A Catalog of Quasar Properties from SDSS DR7
• A luminous quasar at a redshift of z = 7.085
• X-shooter, the new wide band intermediate resolution spectrograph at the ESO Very Large Telescope
• A Cosmology Calculator for the World Wide Web
• An 800-million-solar-mass black hole in a significantly neutral Universe at redshift 7.5
• The Dark Energy Camera
• 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
• 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
• The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys
• Automated data reduction workflows for astronomy
• Optimal Techniques in Two-dimensional Spectroscopy: Background Subtraction for the 21st Century
• The Assembly of the First Massive Black Holes
• An Empirical Ultraviolet Template for Iron Emission in Quasars as Derived from I Zw 1
• The WFCAM Science Archive
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Fourteenth Data Release
• Black Hole Masses and Eddington Ratios at 0.3<z<4
• Comparing Single-Epoch Virial Black Hole Mass Estimators for Luminous Quasars
• Gemini Near-infrared Spectroscopy of Luminous z~6 Quasars: Chemical Abundances, Black Hole Masses, and MgII Absorption
• SkyMapper Southern Survey: Second Data Release (DR2)
• Black Hole Growth to z = 2 - I: Improved Virial Methods for Measuring M_BH and L/L_Edd
• The VISTA Science Archive
• Gemini GNIRS near-infrared spectroscopy of 50 quasars at z>~5.7
• The stellar-to-halo mass relation over the past 12 Gyr
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Velocity Shifts of Quasar Emission Lines
• High-Redshift SDSS Quasars with Weak Emission Lines
• The UKIRT Hemisphere Survey: Definition and J-band Data Release
• The Evolution of the UV Luminosity Function from z ~ 0.75 to z ~ 2.5 using HST ERS WFC3/UVIS Observations
• The Proper Motion Field of the Small Magellanic Cloud: Kinematic Evidence for its Tidal Disruption
• Rest-frame Optical Spectra and Black Hole Masses of 3<z<6 Quasars
• Virial Black Hole Mass Estimates for 280,000 AGNs from the SDSS Broad-Band Photometry and Single Epoch Spectra
• An Improved Method for Using MgII to Estimate Black Hole Masses in Active Galactic Nuclei
• The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) Quasar Survey: the 4th and 5th Data Release
• The Evolution of the Rest-frame V-band Luminosity Function from z=4: A Constant Faint-end Slope over the Last 12 Gyr of Cosmic History
• Black Hole Mass Estimates and Rapid Growth of Supermassive Black Holes in Luminous $z\sim$ 3.5 Quasars
• The first Super Massive Black Holes: indications from models for future observations
• An ultra-luminous quasar at z=5.363 with a ten billion solar mass black hole and a Metal-Rich DLA at z~5
• SDSS J013127.34-032100.1: a candidate blazar with a 11 billion solar mass black hole at $z$=5.18
• SDSS J013127.34$-$032100.1: A newly discovered radio-loud quasar at $z=5.18$ with extremely high luminosity
• The Extremely Luminous Quasar Survey in the Pan-STARRS 1 Footprint (PS-ELQS)
• A faint halo star cluster discovered in the Blanco Imaging of the Southern Sky Survey
• Ultra-luminous quasars at redshift $z>4.5$ from SkyMapper
• Discovery of the most ultra-luminous QSO using Gaia, SkyMapper and WISE
• The Infrared Medium-deep Survey. III. Survey of Luminous Quasars at 4.7 $\le$ z $\le$ 5.4
• Rest-frame UV single-epoch black hole mass estimates of low-luminosity AGN at intermediate redshifts

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Efficiency of black hole formation via collisions in stellar systems: An analysis of data from simulations and observations
• AllBRICQS: the All-sky BRIght, Complete Quasar Survey
• Universal $10^{20}$Hz stochastic gravitational waves from photon spheres of black holes
• Discovery of the most luminous quasar of the last 9 Gyr
• Characterising SMSS J2157--3602, the most luminous known quasar, with accretion disc models
• A Closer Look at Two of the Most Luminous Quasars in the Universe
• Exploring the radio spectral energy distribution of the ultraluminous radio-quiet quasar SDSS J0100+2802 at redshift 6.3
• Finite Hilbert space and maximum mass of Schwarzschild black holes from a Generalized Uncertainty Principle
• Ultra-luminous high-redshift quasars from SkyMapper -- II. New quasars and the bright end of the luminosity function