A Quasar-Anchored Protocluster at z=6.6 in the ASPIRE Survey: I. Properties of [OIII] Emitters in a 10 Mpc Overdensity Structure

Abstract

ASPIRE (A SPectroscopic survey of bIased halos in the Reionization Era) is a quasar legacy survey primarily using \textit{JWST} to target a sample of 25 $z>6$ quasars with NIRCam slitless spectroscopy and imaging. The first study in this series found evidence of a strong overdensity of galaxies around J0305$-$3150, a luminous quasar at $z=6.61$, within a single NIRCam pointing obtained in JWST Cycle 1. Here, we present the first results of a JWST Cycle 2 mosaic that covers 35 arcmin${}^2$ with NIRCam imaging/WFSS of the same field to investigate the spatial extent of the putative protocluster. The F356W grism data targets [OIII]+H${\hat{I}}^2$ at $5.3<z<7$ and reveals a population of 124 line emitters down to a flux limit of 1.2$\times$10${}^{-18}$ erg s${}^{-1}$ cm${}^{-2}$. Fifty-three of these galaxies lie at $6.5<z<6.8$ spanning 10 cMpc on the sky, corresponding to an overdensity within a 2500 cMpc${}^3$ volume of 12.5 $\pm$ 2.6, anchored by the quasar. Comparing to the [OIII] luminosity function from the Emission line galaxies and Intergalactic Gas in the Epoch of Reionization (EIGER) project, we find a dearth of faint [OIII] emitters at log(L/erg\,s${}^{-1}$) $<$ 42.3, which we suggest is consistent with either bursty star formation causing galaxies to scatter around the grism detection limit or modest suppression from quasar feedback. While we find a strong filamentary overdensity of [OIII] emitters consistent with a protocluster, we suggest that we could be insensitive to a population of older, more massive Lyman-break galaxies with weak nebular emission on scales $>10$ cMpc.

accepted for publication in ApJ. 18 pages, 7 figures. see paper II: arXiv:2410.03827