SHELLQs-JWST Unveils the Host Galaxies of 12 Quasars at z>6

Abstract

The advent of JWST has opened new horizons in the study of quasar host galaxies during the reionization epoch (z>6). Building upon our previous initial measurements of stellar light from two quasar host galaxies at these redshifts, we now report the detection of the stellar light from the full Cycle 1 sample of 12 distant moderate-luminosity quasar (M1450>-24 mag) host galaxies at z>6 from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP). Using JWST/NIRCam observations at 1.5 and 3.6 um combined with 2D image decomposition analysis, we successfully detect the host galaxies in 11 of the 12 targets, underscoring the high detection rates achievable with moderate-luminosity quasars. Based on two-band photometry and SED fitting, we find that our host galaxies are massive, with logM*/M_sun = 9.5-11.0. The effective radii range from 0.6 to 3.2 kpc, comparable to the sizes of inactive galaxies with similar masses at z~6 as measured with imaging from COSMOS-Web.Intriguingly, the two quasar hosts with post-starburst features, which reside at the high-mass end of our sample and exhibit relatively compact morphologies, have similar size and stellar mass surface densities to quiescent galaxies at z~4-5. These findings suggest that the so-called galaxy compaction scenario is already in place at the reionization epoch, in which gas inflows during starburst phases drive centrally concentrated star formation followed by rapid quenching, bridging the structural transition of massive galaxies from relatively extended star-forming disks to compact quiescent systems.

arXiv comment24 pages, 10 figures, 6 tables

References in corpus (60)

• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• Galactic Stellar and Substellar Initial Mass Function
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• On the variation of the Initial Mass Function
• Coevolution (Or Not) of Supermassive Black Holes and Host Galaxies
• The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) -- Overview
• Detailed Decomposition of Galaxy Images. II. Beyond Axisymmetric Models
• Constraining the Evolution of the Ionizing Background and the Epoch of Reionization with z ~ 6 Quasars II: A Sample of 19 Quasars
• 3D-HST+CANDELS: The Evolution of the Galaxy Size-Mass Distribution since $z=3$
• CIGALE: a python Code Investigating GALaxy Emission
• The Hyper Suprime-Cam SSP Survey: Overview and Survey Design
• Formation of Massive Galaxies at High Redshift: Cold Streams, Clumpy Disks and Compact Spheroids
• 3D-HST WFC3-selected Photometric Catalogs in the Five CANDELS/3D-HST Fields: Photometry, Photometric Redshifts and Stellar Masses
• Inferring the star-formation histories of massive quiescent galaxies with BAGPIPES: Evidence for multiple quenching mechanisms
• An ultra-luminous quasar with a twelve-billion-solar-mass black hole at redshift 6.30
• The Assembly of the First Massive Black Holes
• Compaction and Quenching of High-z Galaxies in Cosmological Simulations: Blue and Red Nuggets
• A Luminous Quasar at Redshift 7.642
• The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning
• The Pan-STARRS1 distant z>5.6 quasar survey: more than 100 quasars within the first Gyr of the universe
• JADES. The diverse population of infant Black Holes at 4<z<11: merging, tiny, poor, but mighty
• The Final SDSS High-Redshift Quasar Sample of 52 Quasars at z>5.7
• Lenstronomy: multi-purpose gravitational lens modelling software package
• GA-NIFS: A massive black hole in a low-metallicity AGN at $z\sim 5.55$ revealed by JWST/NIRSpec IFS
• CEERS Epoch 1 NIRCam Imaging: Reduction Methods and Simulations Enabling Early JWST Science Results
• A massive quiescent galaxy at redshift 4.658
• Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-Luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs). V. Quasar Luminosity Function and Contribution to Cosmic Reionization at z = 6
• Rapidly star-forming galaxies adjacent to quasars at redshifts exceeding 6
• JWST CEERS & JADES Active Galaxies at z = 4-7 Violate the Local $M_{\bullet }-M_{\star }$ Relation at $>3\sigma$: Implications for Low-Mass Black Holes and Seeding Models
• Subaru high-z exploration of low-luminosity quasars (SHELLQs). I. Discovery of 15 quasars and bright galaxies at 5.7 < z < 6.9
• The mass relations between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies at 1<z<2 with HST-WFC3
• lenstronomy II: A gravitational lensing software ecosystem
• Supermassive black holes in cosmological simulations I: M_BH-M_star relation and black hole mass function
• Cosmic Evolution of Black Holes and Spheroids. II: Scaling Relations at z=0.36
• 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). II. Discovery of 32 Quasars and Luminous Galaxies at 5.7 < z < 6.8
• JWST/NIRCam Probes Young Star Clusters in the Reionization Era Sunrise Arc
• Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-Luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs). IV. Discovery of 41 Quasars and Luminous Galaxies at 5.7 < z < 6.9
• Detection of stellar light from quasar host galaxies at redshifts above 6
• The Kinematics of z ~ 6 Quasar Host Galaxies
• A Candidate of a Least-Massive Black Hole at the First 1.1 Billion Years of the Universe
• 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
• A review of elliptical and disc galaxy structure, and modern scaling laws
• A SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era (ASPIRE): JWST Reveals a Filamentary Structure around a z=6.61 Quasar
• Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-Luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs). XIII. Large-scale Feedback and Star Formation in a Low-Luminosity Quasar at z = 7.07 on the Local Black Hole to Host Mass Relation
• Early results from GLASS-JWST. V: the first rest-frame optical size-luminosity relation of galaxies at $z>7$
• Massive Dead Galaxies at z~2 with HST Grism Spectroscopy I. Star Formation Histories and Metallicity Enrichment
• Major mergers are not the dominant trigger for high-accretion AGNs at z = 2
• High-redshift quasars and their host galaxies I: kinematical and dynamical properties and their tracers
• The Sizes of Quasar Host Galaxies with the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program
• Near-Infrared Imaging of a z=6.42 Quasar Host Galaxy With the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3
• CEERS Key Paper III: The Resolved Host Properties of AGN at 3 < z < 5 with JWST
• ALMA and HST kiloparsec-scale imaging of a quasar-galaxy merger at $z\approx 6.2$
• Host galaxies of high-redshift extremely red and obscured quasars
• The Pan-STARRS1 z>5.6 quasar survey II: Discovery of 55 Quasars at 5.6<z<6.5
• Opening the era of quasar host studies at high redshift with JWST
• Constraining galaxy overdensities around three z~6.5 quasars with ALMA and MUSE
• Limits to Rest-Frame Ultraviolet Emission From Far-Infrared-Luminous z~6 Quasar Hosts
• SHELLQs. Bridging the Gap: JWST Unveils Obscured Quasars in the Most Luminous Galaxies at z > 6