Observational Signatures of the First Quasars

Abstract

We study the observational signatures of a potential population of low-luminosity quasars at high redshifts in a LambdaCDM cosmology. We derive the evolution of the quasar luminosity function at fainter luminosities and higher redshifts than currently detected, based on three assumptions: (1) the formation of dark-matter halos follows the Press-Schechter theory, (2) the ratio of central black hole mass to halo mass is the same for all halos, and (3) the light-curve of quasars, in Eddington units, is universal. We show that a universal light-curve provides an excellent fit to the observed quasar luminosity function at redshifts 2.6 < z < 4.5. By extrapolating the evolution of this luminosity function to higher redshifts (4.5 < z < 20), we find that the associated early population of low-luminosity quasars reionizes the universe around redshift z=12. The reprocessing of the UV light of these quasars by dust from early type II supernovae, distorts the microwave background spectrum by a Compton y-parameter, y = 1e-5, comparable to the upper limit set by COBE. The Next Generation Space Telescope could detect tens of quasars from redshifts z > 10 per square arcminute, with its proposed 1nJy sensitivity at 1-3.5 microns. Absorption spectra of several such quasars would reveal the reionization history of the universe.

28 pages, latex, 9 figures included, submitted to ApJ

References in corpus (10)

• The Spectrum of the Extragalactic Far Infrared Background from the COBE Firas Observations
• Reionization of the Universe and the Early Production of Metals
• Microwave Background Constraints on Cosmological Parameters
• Reionization of the Intergalactic Medium and the Damping Wing of the Gunn-Peterson Trough
• A Pair of Lensed Galaxies at z=4.92 in the Field of CL1358+62
• Spectroscopic Evidence for a Supermassive Black Hole in NGC 4486B
• New evidence for a massive black hole at the centre of the quiescent galaxy M32
• The Influence of the Photoionizing Radiation Spectrum on Metal-Line Ratios in Ly alpha Forest Clouds
• A Lower Limit to the Universal Density of Metals at z \sim 3
• Signatures of Intergalactic Dust From the First Supernovae

Cited by in corpus (203)

• A Relationship Between Nuclear Black Hole Mass and Galaxy Velocity Dispersion
• A Unified, Merger-Driven Model for the Origin of Starbursts, Quasars, the Cosmic X-Ray Background, Supermassive Black Holes and Galaxy Spheroids
• In the Beginning: The First Sources of Light and the Reionization of the Universe
• A Unified Model for the Evolution of Galaxies and Quasars
• 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
• Observational constraints on growth of massive black holes
• A Survey of z>5.7 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey II: Discovery of Three Additional Quasars at z>6
• Radiative Transfer in a Clumpy Universe: III. The Nature of Cosmological Ionizing Sources
• The First Galaxies
• First stars, very massive black holes and metals
• Cosmological simulations of black hole growth: AGN luminosities and downsizing
• Self-Regulated Growth of Supermassive Black Holes in Galaxies as the Origin of the Optical and X-ray Luminosity Functions of Quasars
• Particle decays during the cosmic dark ages
• Elemental Abundances in QSOs: Star Formation and Galactic Nuclear Evolution at High Redshifts
• High-Redshift Quasars Found in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Commissioning Data IV: Luminosity Function from the Fall Equatorial Stripe Sampl
• The Radiative Feedback of the First Cosmological Objects
• Cosmological Reionization by Stellar Sources
• Gamma-Ray Bursts as a Probe of the Very High Redshift Universe
• Gamma-Ray Bursts as a Probe of the Very High Redshift Universe
• The Reionization of the Universe by the First Stars and Quasars
• On the Initial Mass Function of Population III Stars
• Quasar Clustering and the Lifetime of Quasars
• The evolution of massive black hole seeds
• Black Hole Demographics from the M(BH)-sigma Relation
• Concordance models of reionization: implications for faint galaxies and escape fraction evolution
• The Discovery of a Luminous z=5.80 Quasar from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Photo-Evaporation of Dwarf Galaxies During Reionization
• The Relation Between Quasar and Merging Galaxy Luminosity Functions and the Merger-Induced Star Formation Rate of the Universe
• Photoionization Feedback in Low--Mass Galaxies at High Redshift
• Fossil HII Regions: Self-Limiting Star Formation at High Redshift
• The Reionization History at High Redshifts I: Physical Models and New Constraints from CMB Polarization
• The Evolution of the M-sigma Relation
• The z=5 Quasar Luminosity Function from SDSS Stripe 82
• The clustering of intermediate redshift quasars as measured by the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
• The evolution of faint AGN between z~1 and z~5 from the COMBO-17 survey
• The Thermal Memory of Reionization History
• Journey to the M_BH -sigma relation: the fate of low mass black holes in the Universe
• Early Growth and Efficient Accretion of Massive Black Holes at High Redshift
• Finding the Electromagnetic Counterparts of Cosmological Standard Sirens
• Intergalactic Magnetic Fields from Quasar Outflows
• Scattered Lyman-alpha Radiation Around Sources Before Cosmological Reionization
• Feedback-regulated star formation and escape of LyC photons from mini-haloes during reionisation
• Quasar Luminosity Functions from Joint Evolution of Black Holes and Host Galaxies
• The Merger History of Supermassive Black Holes in Galaxies
• Constraining the neutral fraction of hydrogen in the IGM at redshift 7.5
• The anti-hierarchical growth of supermassive black holes
• Determining the Properties and Evolution of Red Galaxies from the Quasar Luminosity Function
• The effect of gravitational-wave recoil on the demography of massive black holes
• Heating and Ionization of the Intergalactic Medium by an Early X-Ray Background
• Constraining the Lifetime of Quasars from their Spatial Clustering
• Inhomogeneous Reionization Regulated by Radiative and Stellar Feedbacks
• Constraints on Warm Dark Matter from Cosmological Reionization
• Cosmological Reionization Around the First Stars: Monte Carlo Radiative Transfer
• Expected Number and Flux Distribution of Gamma-Ray-Burst Afterglows with High Redshifts
• Galaxy UV-luminosity function and reionization constraints on axion dark matter
• Cosmic Reionisation by Stellar Sources: Population II Stars
• Secondary CMB anisotropies in a universe reionized in patches
• Photon Conserving Radiative Transfer around Point Sources in multi-dimensional Numerical Cosmology
• A Limit from the X-ray Background on the Contribution of Quasars to Reionization
• Probing the Reionization History of the Universe using the Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization
• The Detectability of High Redshift Lyman Alpha Emission Lines Prior to the Reionization of the Universe
• Black Hole Growth in Hierarchical Galaxy Formation
• A Physical Model for the Luminosity Function of High-Redshift Quasars
• Quasar Strömgren Spheres Before Cosmological Reionization
• Supermassive Black Holes from Ultra-Strongly Self-Interacting Dark Matter
• Tracing the cosmological assembly of stars and supermassive black holes in galaxies
• Binary Quasars at High Redshift I: 24 New Quasar Pairs at z ~ 3-4
• Luminosity-Dependent Quasar Lifetimes: A New Interpretation of the Quasar Luminosity Function
• Evolution of Active Galaxies: Black-hole Mass - Bulge relations for Narrow Line Objects
• The Fall of the Quasar Population
• FeII/MgII Emission Line Ratio in High Redshift Quasars
• Models for Dusty Lyman alpha Emitters at High Redshift
• Quasar Elemental Abundances at High Redshifts
• Origin of the anti-hierarchical growth of black holes
• Modeling the cosmological co-evolution of supermassive black holes and galaxies: I. BH scaling relations and the AGN luminosity function
• Escape of Ionizing Radiation from High-Redshift Galaxies
• The Demographics of Broad-Line Quasars in the Mass-Luminosity Plane. I. Testing FWHM-Based Virial Black Hole Masses
• Do We Need Stars to Reionize the Universe at High Redshifts? Early Reionization by Decaying Heavy Sterile Neutrinos
• The Influence of Supershells and Galactic Outflows on the Escape of Ionizing Radiation from Dwarf Starburst Galaxies
• Photon Consumption in Minihalos during Cosmological Reionization
• The Unusual Infrared Object HDF-N J123656.3+621322
• The mass function of high redshift seed black holes
• A Simple Model for Quasar Demographics
• On the relative Contribution of high-redshift Galaxies and Active Galactic Nuclei to Reionization
• Decoding the X-ray Properties of Pre-Reionization Era Sources
• Galaxy Light Concentration. I. Index stability and the connection with galaxy structure, dynamics, and supermassive black holes
• X-shaped radio galaxies as observational evidence for the interaction of supermassive binary black holes and accretion disk at pc scale
• Supermassive Black Holes in the Hierarchical Universe: A General Framework and Observational Tests
• Active Galactic Nuclei In Cosmological Simulations - I. Formation of black holes and spheroids through mergers
• The distribution of supermassive black holes in the nuclei of nearby galaxies
• A Galactic Wind at z = 5.190
• High-redshift quasars host galaxies: is there a stellar mass crisis?
• The First Galaxies: Assembly of Disks and Prospects for Direct Detection
• The Formation of the First Massive Black Holes
• Very High Redshift X-ray Selected AGN in the Chandra Deep Field-North
• Reasoning From Fossils: Learning From the Local Black Hole Population About the Evolution of Quasars
• Is there an upper limit to black hole masses?
• A Semi-Analytic Model for Cosmological Reheating and Reionization Due to the Gravitational Collapse of Structure
• Heating of the intracluster medium by quasar outflows
• Identifying the Reionization Redshift from the Cosmic Star Formation Rate
• Constraints on QSO models from a relation between the QSO luminosity function and the local black hole mass function
• The Epoch of Helium Reionization
• HeII Recombination Lines From the First Luminous Objects
• The First Galaxies: Assembly under Radiative Feedback from the First Stars
• Constraining the UV emissivity of AGN throughout cosmic time via X-ray surveys
• Formation of Sub-galactic Clouds under UV Background Radiation
• Cosmological Constant or Intergalactic Dust? Constraints from the Cosmic Far Infrared Background
• Constraints on the correlation between QSO luminosity and host halo mass from high-redshift quasar clustering
• Assessing the redshift evolution of massive black holes and their hosts
• Gravitational lenses magnify up to one third of the most distant quasars
• Quasar Evolution Driven by Galaxy Encounters in Hierarchical Structures
• A Radiation-Hydrodynamical Model for Supermassive Black Hole-to-Bulge Mass Relation and Quasar Formation
• Faint AGN and the Ionizing Background
• Simulating Reionization in Numerical Cosmology
• Toward precise constraints on growth of massive black holes
• Observational Signatures of the First Luminous Objects
• On the Cosmological Evolution of the Luminosity Function and the Accretion Rate of Quasars
• Optical Monitoring of the Broad-Line Radio Galaxy 3C390.3
• High-Redshift Galaxies: Their Predicted Size and Surface Brightness Distributions and Their Gravitational Lensing Probability
• Gravitational Lensing of the SDSS High-Redshift Quasars
• Explaining Cosmological Anisotropy: Evidence for Causal Horizons from CMB data
• First Sources in Infrared Light: Stars, Supernovae and Miniquasars
• Proto-Quasars:Physical States and Observable Properties
• On the Evolution of the Cosmic Ionizing Background
• Relic Black Holes In Galactic Nuclei
• Modeling the Counts of Faint Radio Loud Quasars: Constraints on the Supermassive Black Hole Population and Predictions for High Redshift
• High redshift quasars and the supermassive black hole mass budget: constraints on quasar formation models
• Five High-Redshift Quasars Discovered in Commissioning Imaging Data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Quasars and galaxy formation
• Constraining the supermassive black holes evolution through the continuity equation
• Cosmic Backgrounds from Miniquasars
• New Methods for Identifying Lyman Continuum Leakers and Reionization-Epoch Analogues
• 3D numerical cosmological radiative transfer in an inhomogeneous medium
• Correlations in the Far Infrared Background
• Determining the Redshift of Reionization From the Spectra of High-Redshift Sources
• Secondary CMB Anisotropies from Cosmological Reionization
• Relations Between Environments of Quasars and Galaxy Formation
• X-Ray Evolution of Active Galactic Nuclei and Hierarchical Galaxy Formation
• Constraining the Redshift z=6 Quasar Luminosity Function Using Gravitational Lensing
• The Extremely Luminous Quasar Survey (ELQS) in the SDSS footprint I.: Infrared Based Candidate Selection
• Observing Dark Stars with JWST
• Constraints on the Process that Regulates the Growth of Supermassive Black Holes Based on the Intrinsic Scatter in the M_bh-sigma Relation
• The quasar epoch and the stellar ages of early-type galaxies
• X-Ray Emission from the First Quasars
• The Chandra COSMOS Legacy survey: the z>3 sample
• Constraints from the Hubble Deep Field on High Redshift Quasar Models
• Hundreds of Low-Mass Active Galaxies in the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) Survey
• Polarization of the \lya Halos Around Sources Before Cosmological Reionization
• Elemental Abundances in the Broad Emission Line Region of Quasars at Redshifts larger than 4
• Probing High Redshift Radiation Fields with Gamma-Ray Absorption
• A Census of the LyC Photons that Form the UV Background During Reionization
• Properties of the KISS Green Pea Galaxies
• Accretion Disk Instabilities, CDM models and their role in Quasar Evolution
• Major Mergers of Haloes, Growth of Massive Black Holes and Evolving Luminosity Function of Quasars
• Demographics of z ~ 6 Quasars in the Black Hole Mass-Luminosity Plane
• Tracing the Sources of Reionization in Cosmological Radiation Hydrodynamics Simulations
• On black hole masses, radio-loudness and bulge luminosities of Seyfert galaxies
• A Unique View of AGN-Driven Molecular Outflows: The Discovery of a Massive Galaxy Counterpart to a $z=2.4$ High-Metallicity Damped Lyman-$\alpha$ Absorber
• Modeling the QSO luminosity and spatial clustering at low redshifts
• Evidence for Merger-Driven Activity in the Clustering of High Redshift Quasars
• The Assembly of Black Hole Mass and Luminosity Functions of High-redshift Quasars via Multiple Accretion Episodes
• Reconstructing the Cosmic Evolution of Quasars from the Age Distribution of Local Early-Type Galaxies
• Observing the First Stars and Black Holes
• The Wide Field Imager Lyman-Alpha Search (WFILAS) for Galaxies at Redshift ~5.7: II. Survey Design and Sample Analysis
• The Formation and Evolution of the First Massive Black Holes
• Can We Detect the Anisotropic Shapes of Quasar HII Regions During Reionization Through The Small-Scale Redshifted 21cm Power Spectrum?
• The Optical Depth to Reionization as a Probe of Cosmological and Astrophysical Parameters
• Cosmological Reionization
• Emission of Positron Annihilation Line Radiation by Clusters of Galaxies
• The phase-diagram of the IGM and the entropy floor of groups and clusters: are clusters born warm?
• Properties of High Redshift Quasars-I: Evolution of the super-massive black-hole to halo mass ratio
• Inhomogeneous reionization and the polarization of the cosmic microwave background
• Mutual Constraints Between Reionization Models and Parameter Extraction From Cosmic Microwave Background Data
• Hydrogen Clouds before Reionization: a Lognormal Model Approach
• Supermassive Black Holes and Galaxy Morphology
• Lyman Alpha Constraints on Very Low Luminosity AGN
• Modeling active galactic nuclei: ongoing problems for the faint-end of the luminosity function
• Dark matter halo creation in moving barrier models
• Is There a Detectable Vishniac Effect?
• Properties of High Redshift Quasars-II: What does the quasar luminosity function tell us about super-massive black-hole evolution?
• The shallow slope of the z~6 quasar luminosity function: limits from the lack of multiple image gravitational lenses
• Episodic activities of supermassive black holes at redshift $z\le 2$: driven by mergers?
• Constraining the Lifetime of QSOs with Present-day Mass Function of Supermassive Black Holes
• The impact of faint AGN discovered by JWST on reionization
• Sunyaev-Zeldovich effects, free-free emission, and imprints on the cosmic microwave background
• Lyman Break Galaxies and Reionization of the Universe
• On the Evolution of High-Redshift Active Galactic Nuclei
• Constraints on radiatively inefficient accretion history from Eddington ratio distribution of active galactic nuclei
• Prospects for Observing High-redshift Radio-loud Quasars in the SKA Era: Paving the Way for 21-cm Forest Observations
• Cosmic Reionization and the First Nonlinear Structures in the Universe
• `First Light' in the Universe; What Ended the "Dark Age"?
• Predictions for the Counts of Faint, High-Redshift Galaxies in the Mid-Infrared
• Investigating the Lyman photon escape in local starburst galaxies with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
• Strong [O III] λ5007 Compact Galaxies Identified from SDSS DR16 and Their Scaling Relations
• Theoretical Models of Multi-waveband QSO Luminosity Functions
• Modeling the accretion history of supermassive black holes
• Analysis of methods for detecting the proximity effect in quasar spectra
• Cosmological Evolution Models for QSO/AGN Luminosity Functions: Effects of Spectrum-Luminosity Correlation and Massive Black Hole Remnants
• Measuring the Virial Temperature of Galactic Halos Through Electron Scattering of Quasar Emission Lines
• The SPOrt Project: Cosmological and Astrophysical Goals
• Evolution of Lyman Break Galaxies Beyond Redshift Four
• Formation of the First Stars and Quasars
• The Contribution of AGN Accretion Disks to Hydrogen Reionization