Is GN-z11 powered by a super-Eddington massive black hole?

Abstract

Observations of $z\sim 6$ quasars powered by supermassive black holes (SMBHs; $M_{\mathrm{BH}}\sim 10^{8-10}{M}_{\odot }$) challenge our current understanding of early black hole (BH) formation and evolution. The advent of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has enabled the study of massive BHs (MBHs; $M_{\mathrm{BH}}\sim 10^{6-7}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$) up to $z\sim 11$, thus bridging the properties of $z\sim 6$ quasars to their ancestors. The JWST spectroscopic observations of GN-z11, a well-known $z=10.6$ star-forming galaxy, have been interpreted with the presence of a super-Eddington (Eddington ratio $\equiv {\lambda }_{\mathrm{Edd}}\sim 5.5$) accreting MBH. To test this hypothesis, we used a zoom-in cosmological simulation of galaxy formation and BH co-evolution. We first tested the simulation results against the observed probability distribution function (PDF) of ${\lambda }_{\mathrm{Edd}}$ found in $z\sim 6$ quasars. Then, in the simulation we selected the BHs that satisfy the following criteria: (a) $10<z<11$, (b) $M_{\mathrm{BH}}>10^6{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$. Next, we apply the extreme value statistics to the PDF of ${\lambda }_{\mathrm{Edd}}$ resulting from the simulation and we find that the probability of observing a $z\sim 10-11$ MBH accreting with ${\lambda }_{\mathrm{Edd}}\sim 5.5$ in the volume surveyed by JWST is very low ($<0.2\%$). We compared our predictions with those in the literature, and discuss the main limitations of our work. Our simulation cannot explain the JWST observations of GN-z11. This might be due to (i) poor resolution and statistics in simulations, (ii) simplistic sub-grid models (e.g. BH accretion and seeding), (iii) uncertainties in the data analysis and interpretation.

8 pages, 2 figures; accepted for publication in A&A

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